One day after the Authors Guild filed its final reply brief with the Supreme Court in Authors Guild vs. Google, the guild's long-running copyright battle over Google's library book-scanning project, the Supreme Court has put the case on the calendar for its April 1 conference. With the meeting date set, the final act in the case could finally be upon us after a more than 10-year legal odyssey.
The suit was first filed in September of 2005, but was shelved for three years while the guild, Google, and a group of publishers stumped for a controversial settlement that was ultimately rejected by Judge Denny Chin. In its final brief, filed March 15, attorneys for the guild urged the court to hear its appeal, claiming that the “balance” of copyright is at stake.
“At the heart of this conflict is a fundamental disagreement about how to apply the Copyright Act in the digital age,” guild attorneys argue, “an issue this Court must resolve, as more and more content is digitized and becomes susceptible to mass infringement.”
