Judge sets Nov. 9 deadline for amended Google book deal

A federal judge has set a Nov. 9 deadline for submitting a revised agreement in the battle over Google Inc.'s effort to get digital rights to millions of out-of-print books.
U.S. District Judge Denny Chin set the deadline after a lawyer for authors told the judge that Google and lawyers for authors and publishers were working around the clock to reach a new deal by early November.
A $125 million agreement was being renegotiated after the U.S. government said it seemed the existing agreement would violate antitrust laws.
The original deal was announced by Mountain View, Calif.-based Google and the publishing industry last October to resolve two copyright lawsuits contesting the book scanning plans. (See stories below.)
Michael Boni, a lawyer for authors, told the judge that the new agreement would contain amendments to the original deal to make it more acceptable to the U.S. Justice Department, which had questioned its legality.
William F. Cavanaugh, a deputy assistant attorney general, told the judge that the Justice Department has been in continuing discussions with the parties.
However, he said the government was not yet aware of what the final deal will look like.
He said he expected "meetings in the near term to go over whatever their proposal is."
Cavanaugh asked that the judge give the government a week to 10 days after any deadline for objections to be submitted for the Justice Department to prepare its analysis of the new deal.