A freelance journalist said Thursday he has sent a letter to a U.S. district court informing it of his "clear objection" to the controversial Google Book Search settlement.
Shojiro Akashi, a journalist and author of 11 Japanese books, told a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo that the proposed settlement, for which Friday is the opt-out deadline, is "extremely unfair for non-American copyright holders."
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, which is weighing the class-action settlement reached last October between Internet search giant Google Inc. and U.S. publishers and authors, has set Friday as the deadline for copyright holders to react to the settlement. Because of an international convention on copyrighted works, rights-holders around the world are automatically included in the class-action suit.
Akashi said Google has failed to adequately inform all rights-holders in Japan of the proposed settlement and noted the settlement administrator put a legal notice in two vernacular newspapers only once, in February.
"It is highly questionable to what extent the rights of non-American copyright holders, including the Japanese, will be protected," he said.