The final assault on a class-action settlement that would expand Google Inc.’s already vast digital library has been delayed until next week.
U.S. District Judge Denny Chin extended the deadline until 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) Tuesday for protesting or supporting the landmark deal that revolves around Google converting millions of copyrighted books so they can be read on computers and other electronic devices.
Ironically, Chin moved the deadline from Friday — a date set in April — because the computers running his court’s electronic filing system went down for maintenance Thursday and will remain unavailable through the Labor Day weekend. The U.S. celebrates the Labor Day holiday on Monday.
The 11th-hour change gives the settlement’s growing number of opponents more time to hone their arguments against a proposal that would empower Google to make digital copies of millions of copyrighted books now gathering dust on library book shelves.
An alliance that includes two of Google’s biggest rivals — Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. — is among the strident critics expected to spell out their objections in Tuesday morning’s flurry of filings. Silicon Valley attorney Gary Reback, perhaps best known for helping the U.S. government shape an antitrust case against Microsoft a decade ago, is spearheading the attack on Google on behalf of the group, called the Open Book Alliance.
Microsoft and Yahoo also could lodge their own separate complaints against Google, just as Amazon.com Inc. did earlier this week.
Google’s 10-month-old settlement with groups representing U.S. authors and publishers would allow the Internet’s search leader to act as its partners’ sales agent. The nonexclusive arrangement has raised fears that Google — already the owner of the Internet’s most powerful advertising network — could emerge as the ringleader of a literary cartel that wields too much control over the prices of digital books.
Those worries prompted the…