At the beginning of 2009, the first settlement notification regarding the Google Book Search lawsuit surprised every author and publisher in countries other than US. They were suddenly notified by newspaper advertisements or internet website that they should be bound by this settlement even if they were foreigner (unless they take opt-out procedure at the US court by September 2009. ). Why the US copyright settlement affect foreign authors or publishers who never intend to publish their book in US, never commit the settlement negotiation? That is because of the existences of the Berne Convention (art. 2 (6), 5(2)) and the U.S. class action system. The latter is very unique system to US and many countries including Japan is not familiar with such system. So, I felt the settlement procedure in the Google Book Search lawsuit seemed to be unfair to foreign stakeholders.
Finally, by adding the requirement for qualification of settlement member that requires US copyright registration (added in November 2009), this unfairness can be avoided.
However, this problem suggests that we, lawyers who may represent benefit of authors and publishers located in countries other than US, should always note US copyright lawsuits.
http://www.authorsguild.org/advocacy/articles/amended-settlement-filed-in-authors-guild.html
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