A New York federal district court rejected a potential settlement in a class-action suit against Google Books, which was brought against the company by the Authors' Guild, CNET reports.
The settlement, which would have allowed Google Books to publish excerpts of books that had gone out of print, was met with opposition by various groups. including Microsoft, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Open Book Alliance.
Stating that the settlement would "simply go too far," the ruling stated that it "would give Google a significant advantage over competitors, rewarding it for engaging in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission, while releasing claims well beyond those presented in the case."
The class-action suit was filed in 2005. The Authors' Guild decided to settle in 2010, noting that it was hoping to avoid the same mistakes that the music industry had made in dealing with copyrighted materials.
