The US Court of Appeals in Manhattan has granted stay on Authors Guild of America’s copyright lawsuit over Google’s plans to digitally scan millions of books.
US Circuit Court of Appeals judge Raymond Lohier overruled the lower courts’ ruling delivered last month which called for a hearing to go continue even as Google contested the case whether the case may be called a class action.
The Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers had filed the case against the search giant in 2005 alleging copyright infringement in Google’s plan to digitise millions of books to create a biggest online library.
In its latest court papers filed Google said that the class "contains millions of different books written by hundreds of thousands ofauthors, many of whom believe they benefit from and approve of Google Books."
The filing also included that the class members will have an incentive to avoid if Google prevails but not if plaintiffs prevail, which would seriously prejudice Google.
The firm also said that with no stay, the district court is expected to consider and possibly rule on the principal merits in the case prior to the appeals court’s ruling of a final decision on class certification.
Earlier in August 2012, the US Circuit Judge Denny Chin had rejected Google’s plea to stop the trial and ordered measures to continue, noting the case was nearly seven years old.
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Google has already scanned over 20 million books for the project.
