Academics Object to Class Certification in Google Books Case

"University of California, Berkeley, law professor Pamela Samuelson, on behalf of more than 80 academics, sent a letter on Monday to Judge Denny Chin asserting that academic authors should not be included as part of a class authorization in the high profile Google Books case, due to fundamental disagreements between the interests of academics and other types of authors....In their recent motion for class certification, the Authors Guild and other plaintiffs are looking to certify the authors of millions of different books as a single class for the purposes of the lawsuit. Google filed a brief [PDF] in opposition to the certification on February 8, pointing out that not all authors share the plaintiffs’ views: “Most authors affirmatively approve of the inclusion of their books in snippet view….Academic authors, in particular, say that they receive other benefits from Google Books, both individual and communal.” To support the claim, the brief quotes a previous January 2010 letter [PDF] from Samuelson to Judge Chin, which she wrote on behalf of more than 60 academics. She wrote that “indexes and snippets advance scholarly research and improve access to knowledge, especially when, as with [Google Book Search], searches yield links to libraries from which the relevant books can be obtained.” In Judge Chin’s rejection of a settlement in the Google Books case last March, he...quoted directly from the January 2010 letter he’d received from Samuelson, which, like the most recent letter, highlighted the differences between academics and other authors: “Academic authors, almost by definition, are committed to maximizing access to knowledge. The [Authors] Guild and the [Association of American Publishers], by contrast, are institutionally committed to maximizing profits.” ..."