Need some research help
Thursday, June 11th, 2009 09:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rolanniOK, the US Government has decided to be upset about the Google Book Settlement. The Justice Department has sent out formal requests for information to various entities, including the Authors Guild, Google, and divers publishers.
But none to authors.
Can someone figure out how authors can get in on the fun, here? I love my publisher, but their interests do not necessarily coincide with mine in this matter; we have different necessities.
Article here
Abundant Spanish Aunts.
But none to authors.
Can someone figure out how authors can get in on the fun, here? I love my publisher, but their interests do not necessarily coincide with mine in this matter; we have different necessities.
Article here
Abundant Spanish Aunts.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Heard back from DOJ and Authors Guild.
Date: 2009-06-18 09:28 pm (UTC)DOJ
The section of the DOJ handling the Google Books settlement investigation is Litigation III ("Lit.3"). I heard back today from a staff attorney there, who explains that their civil investigative demands are not public, and they are particularly focused on the questions of consumer harm and anti-trust. He further explains that questions regarding the composition of the class (for class action) and what he terms "Rule 23" questions, referring to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/Rule23.htm) (HTML copy at Cornell; official PDF here (http://www.uscourts.gov/rules/CV2008.pdf)) that govern class actions—those are all best directed to the Court.
If there are particular issues of consumer harm to bring to the Antitrust Division of the DOJ, they can be filed with the DOJ ATR's Citizen Complaint Center (http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/contact/newcase.htm):
Author Guild
I also corresponded with the Authors Guild's counsel, Joanne Zack (of Boni & Zack) confirmed that the Authors Guild did indeed receive a civil investigative demand, but she said that neither the demand nor information as to who at the DOJ issued it were public.
I think that's about it for what I can do on this topic...