The coalition of authors taking Google to the court to stop Google Book Search secured an important victory on Thursday, May 31, as the judge overseeing the case ruled that the Author's Guild and three individual authors can represent the class of all authors whose books have been scanned by the search giant. Google has argued that having all authors in a single lawsuit would make the case too complex, and said that most authors actually supported the project.

After rejecting a settlement of the case last year, Judge Denny Chin now ruled on two distinct legal issues, the first of which referred to whether the Author's Guild could serve as a representative of its members. Google had argued the case would require the participation of individual plaintiffs in order to cover issues such as fair use. Therefore only individual authors could be plaintiffs.

Judge Chin, however, dismissed Google's argument and allowed the Author's Guild to act as representative. "The associations' claims of copyright infringement and requests for injunctive relief will not require the participation of each individual association member," wrote the Judge, as cited by Ars Technica.

In addition, Chin allowed three individual plaintiffs - Betty Miles, Joseph Goulden, and Jim Bouton - to serve as representatives for the class of "persons residing in the United States who hold a United States copyright interest in one or more Books reproduced by Google as part of its Library Project."

Fair Use Considerations

Meanwhile, Google claimed this group was too large and diverse, and with too many divergent interests, for a single lawsuit to cover everything. The fair use considerations for scanning a technical manual, or a cookbook, for instance, could be very different from those behind scanning a novel. Moreover, a survey sponsored by Google showed that 58 percent of authors actually approved Google's book scanning initiative. In light of this survey, the tech giant argued that it was not reasonable to have project opponents represent the class of all affected authors.

Judge Chin, however, rejected these arguments as well, ruling that the complex legal issues could be dealt with by taking into account subsets of the affected work, i.e. all novels, all cookbooks, all children's books etc. The fact that "some class members may prefer to leave the alleged violation of their rights unremedied is not a basis for finding the lead plaintiffs inadequate," noted the Judge.

Judge Chin's ruling on Thursday, May 31, marks a key victory for the authors, as the three individual authors would have found it difficult financially to carry the lawsuit forward on an individual basis. Now, the plaintiffs will also be able to benefit from the resources of the Author's Guild to cover their legal expenses. The case will now go forward to consider Google's fair use arguments.