IPcentral Weblog
  The DACA Blog
  Institutions
     
  Tanks
     
  Blogs
     
  Mags
     

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

 
Final Hearing on Google Books Settlement on February 18--But Not On Web?
(previous | next)
 

The Federal district court handling the Authors Guild's suit against Google over Google Books has scheduled a hearing on for February 18, 2010 in New York City (after several postponements). The parties, their supporters and the Department of Justice will all get to speak. Twenty-six outside groups will each get five minutes to speak about the deal--21 against and 5 in favor. (If the numbers seem off-balance, note that France is on the "con" side, and if the statist-stasist-centralist-protectionist French are against something tech-related, how bad an idea could it really be?)

Although the settlement is highly arcane, how this issue is resolved will probably do as much, for better or worse, to shape our digital future in the years to come as any tech policy issue currently under discussion. (I'd say only net neutrality, privacy regulation and media socialization would fall into the same tier of such fork-in-the-road decision-points.)

So of course this profoundly important public hearing is going to be livecasted, right? Unfortunately, I don't think so.

The court order mentions that video of the proceeding will be provided in a second courtroom for overflow seating, but says nothing beyond that. Given the importance this hearing, that's a bit like saying that the State of the Union Address is going to be available on video in the Senate Chamber as well as the House Chamber--so there will be plenty of seating for the literally hundreds (in this case, maybe dozens) of people in the interested public who are lucky enough to live nearby and drop in--and manage to get in. Maybe I'm not giving the court the benefit of the doubt here, but... why should I? The judiciary can't even handle making their PDF documents easily accessible! So it's possible that they'll surprise us, but I doubt it. And if courtroom practice up in New York is anything what I've dealt with, I suspect the court security will prevent journalists from bringing cameras, even on their cell phones, into the courtroom. So we probably won't even get grainy video re-captures!

If they can put the video in the courtroom next door, surely they can put it up on the web, too. If courts are going to be making such critical technology policy decisions, their final hearings on the matters ought to be accessible to everyone. We would expect nothing less from our other branches of government, so why can't we hold the judiciary to the same standard? Seriously, guys, have you ever heard of UStream?

posted by Berin Szoka @ 10:08 AM | Copyright , e-Government & Transparency

Share |

Link to this Entry | Printer-Friendly | Email a Comment | Post a Comment(0)

Comments

Post a Comment:





 
Blog Main
RSS Feed  
Recent Posts
  EFF-PFF Amicus Brief in Schwarzenegger v. EMA Supreme Court Videogame Violence Case
New OECD Study Finds That Improved IPR Protections Benefit Developing Countries
Hubris, Cowardice, File-sharing, and TechDirt
iPhones, DRM, and Doom-Mongers
"Rogue Archivist" Carl Malamud On How to Fix Gov2.0
Coping with Information Overload: Thoughts on Hamlet's BlackBerry by William Powers
How Many Times Has Michael "Dr. Doom" Copps Forecast an Internet Apocalypse?
Google / Verizon Proposal May Be Important Compromise, But Regulatory Trajectory Concerns Many
Two Schools of Internet Pessimism
GAO: Wireless Prices Plummeting; Public Knowledge: We Must Regulate!
Archives by Month
  September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
  - (see all)
Archives by Topic
  - A La Carte
- Add category
- Advertising & Marketing
- Antitrust & Competition Policy
- Appleplectics
- Books & Book Reviews
- Broadband
- Cable
- Campaign Finance Law
- Capitalism
- Capitol Hill
- China
- Commons
- Communications
- Copyright
- Cutting the Video Cord
- Cyber-Security
- DACA
- Digital Americas
- Digital Europe
- Digital Europe 2006
- Digital TV
- E-commerce
- e-Government & Transparency
- Economics
- Education
- Electricity
- Energy
- Events
- Exaflood
- Free Speech
- Gambling
- General
- Generic Rant
- Global Innovation
- Googlephobia
- Googlephobia
- Human Capital
- Innovation
- Intermediary Deputization & Section 230
- Internet
- Internet Governance
- Internet TV
- Interoperability
- IP
- Local Franchising
- Mass Media
- Media Regulation
- Monetary Policy
- Municipal Ownership
- Net Neutrality
- Neutrality
- Non-PFF Podcasts
- Ongoing Series
- Online Safety & Parental Controls
- Open Source
- PFF
- PFF Podcasts
- Philosophy / Cyber-Libertarianism
- Privacy
- Privacy Solutions
- Regulation
- Search
- Security
- Software
- Space
- Spectrum
- Sports
- State Policy
- Supreme Court
- Taxes
- The FCC
- The FTC
- The News Frontier
- Think Tanks
- Trade
- Trademark
- Universal Service
- Video Games & Virtual Worlds
- VoIP
- What We're Reading
- Wireless
- Wireline
Archives by Author
PFF Blogosphere Archives
We welcome comments by email - look for a link to the author's email address in the byline of each post. Please let us know if we may publish your remarks.
 










The Progress & Freedom Foundation