Publishers Weekly is reporting this afternoon that lawyers representing Google and its partners in the Google Books Settlement told federal judge Denny Chin that they intend to file a revised settlement by 9 November.
"The new agreement will include specific amendments designed to answer the objections raised to the deal by the Department of Justice and dozens of other parties and individuals who objected to the original settlement. The lawyers also asked for a limited time to file objections to the amended deal, and asked that new objections be limited to the new amendments. Judge Chin agreed with the timetable and parties hope to have a final hearing in early January. Lawyers for the Authors Guild also asked that a previously scheduled January 5, 2010 deadline - for authors of scanned books to make claims for payments - be extended to June 5, 2010."
The report adds that Judge Chin drew laughter when he said the court had been overwhelmed by hard-copy submissions of briefs relating to the case, adding "of all cases this should have a electronic submission process." Heh.
