No ruling to come Thursday in Google books case

Don't expect a settlement in the federal fight between Google and a host of tech giants, publishers and countries over the search engine's expansive book database.

The judge presiding over that case told litigants on Thursday there was "too much to digest" to render a prompt ruling on Google's $125-million settlement with authors and publishers, who sued the company in 2005.

"Voluminous materials have been submitted, and we are working our way through them," U.S. District Judge Denny Chin told the New York courtroom. "There is a lot of repetition. Some of the submissions even quote some of the other submissions. I'm reading them twice."

Ultimately, time is no matter for Google and its opposing book publishers, who have been at odds for almost five years and counting. When the search engine giant first began to index books -- with previews of those works included -- publishers grumbled that the company had violated their copyrights and promised to fight for an amenable settlement.

Google avoided that boondoggle by agreeing to (and later revising) a $125 million deal with publishers and authors.

However, the Department of Justice -- among others -- quickly condemned that settlement as anti-competitive. Others have since criticized Google for including all books in its registry unless authors opt out, while still more have charged the search giant failed to include sufficient privacy protections for those who read books online.

Google supporters repeated on Thursday their primary argument: that the purpose of copyright is to facilitate the creation and dissemination of creative works, which their service accomplishes.

But a number of opponents during Thursday morning's proceedings hammered the company's logic, stressing its compromise overreached realistic bounds.

A representative from Germany implored Judge Chin to limit the Google deal only to U.S. works, while a lawyer from a coalition of authors in New Zealand expressed concern the deal could prompt the need for sanctions. A representative to the court on behalf of Amazon even called the compromise a "full scale commercial exploitation with essentially no restraint whatsoever."

However, Judge Chin made explicitly clear on Thursday he would not take a side in the case until he had processed all of the evidence.

"To end the suspense, I am not going to rule today," he said, though he seemed more sympathetic to Google's opponents during the day's proceedings. "There is just too much to digest."