The Authors Guild, an advocacy organization for published writers, together with a former Poet Laureate, a Lincoln biographer and a children’s book author, Tuesday sued search engine and advertising giant Google alleging “massive copyright infringement at the expense of the rights of individual writers.” The class action suit filed in federal court in Manhattan alleges that Google has engaged in unauthorized scanning and copying of books through its Google Print Library Project. The project, which involves the scanning and digitizing of library books, is a “plain and brazen violation of copyright law” according to Nick Taylor, the president of the Authors Guild, who added:

It’s not up to Google or anyone other than the authors, the rightful owners of these copyrights, to decide whether and how their works will be copied.

Last month, CNET news reported that Google said it would temporarily halt book scanning for the project after widespread criticism from publishers. Google is no stranger to lawsuits for copyright infringement. Earlier this year, Google News was sued by AFP for alleged intellectual property infringement. AFP alleged that Google pulled and displayed photos, headlines and leads from the AFP subscription website.

The named plaintiffs who seek damages in addition to an injunction to stop the digitizing, are New York Times writer Herbert Mitgang, children’s author Betty Miles and Daniel Hoffman, 1973-1974 US Poet Laureate. CNET News has more.

The Associated Press is reporting: Now available online are articles headlined “Reid Likely to Oppose Roberts’ Nomination” and “Sen. Boxer Writes Novel About Senate“. The New York Times reports, “Democratic Leader Intends to Vote Against Roberts.”

Maureen Hayden reports in today’s Courier & Press, “Lawsuit delay snarls claim to manuscript.”

Vanderburgh County court officials hoping to get their chance at cracking a local version of the “da Vinci code” may be out of luck: A lawsuit over a manuscript purported to contain the scribblings of 15th century genius Leonardo da Vinci is on hold and may land in another court.

The lawsuit, filed last year in Vanderburgh Circuit Court, is expected to be automatically “stayed” because the defendant in the case – a world famous art dealer who claims to own a piece of the Dead Sea Scrolls – has filed for bankruptcy. The defendant, Bruce P. Ferrini of Akron, Ohio, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection late last week in Ohio. A bankruptcy filing stalls almost all litigation against a debtor until the bankruptcy matter is resolved. Ferrini was sued by an Evansville couple last year, who contend he breached a contract to try to authenticate and sell the manuscript.

The dispute involves Evansville residents, two of whom are local attorneys.

US Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told the Senate Monday that he will vote for Judge John Roberts, nominated by President Bush as Chief Justice of the United States. Specter nonetheless acknowledged that Roberts had dodged some questions asked of him during the confirmation hearings and admitted, “Notwithstanding his answers and my efforts to glean some hint or realistic expectation from his words and body language, candidly it is not possible to predict or have a solid expectation of what Judge Roberts would do.” If confirmed to succeed the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Roberts at the age of 50 will be the youngest Chief Justice named to the bench in two centuries. Even though Democrats have been frustrated with Roberts’ refused to answer specific questions related to gender inequality, abortion and other contentious issues, Specter said that he felt Judge Roberts “went about as far as he could” on those and properly stressed the importance of legal precedent. The Judiciary Committee will vote on its recommendation for the nomination Thursday, with the full Senate voting on whether or not to confirm Roberts during the week of September 26. Reuters has more.

The Indianapolis Star reports today, “Advocates seek to revive proposed gay-bias ban.”

The battle over a proposal to ban discrimination against gays in the workplace and housing market in Marion County is quietly heating up, nearly five months after local officials voted against the idea.

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A proposal to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation or identity failed in an 18-11 City-County Council vote in April that crossed party lines.

Current laws protect all workers from discrimination based on race, religion, age and several other factors. The anti-discrimination ordinance would protect gay and transgender people from being fired or denied housing because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

In the spring the Human Rights Commission recommended to the City Council that they add sexual orientation and gender identity to the city’s Human Rights Ordinance. Indianapolis Councillors Nytes and Keller proposed the ordinance amending the Revised Code of the Consolidated City and County by amending Chapter 581, Human Relations, Equal Opportunity to provide for the following (additions underlined).

Every contract to which one (1) of the parties is the city or the county, or any board, department or office of either the city or county, including franchises granted to public utilities, shall contain a provision requiring the governmental contractor and subcontractors not to discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment in the performance of the contract, with respect to hire, tenure, terms, conditions or privileges of employment, or any matter directly or indirectly related to employment, because of race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, age, handicap, disability, disabled veteran status and Vietnam era veteran status. Breach of this provision may be regarded as a material breach of the contract.

Advance America released this statement in response. GayIndy.org has posted a resolution in support of the newest proposal. The resolution was authored by the Indy Rainbow Chamber of Commerce.

The Indiana Supreme Court released the following statement titled, “Indiana judicial system website selected as top court site in the nation.”

The Indiana Judicial System website was selected as the number one court website in the nation at the ninth annual Court Technology Conference in Seattle, Washington, Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard announced today.

The award was announced this Thursday at the conclusion of the conference, a gathering of thousands of people who are interested in advancing court technology. The event is hosted by the National Center for State Courts, which is based in Williamsburg, Va.

The Florida Supreme Court site placed third and the website for the Superior Court of Sacramento, Calif., came in second.

Indiana’s website, which is located at www.IN.gov/judiciary, is operated by the staff of the Supreme Court’s Judicial Technology and Automation Committee (JTAC). The website contains a wealth of information for the public, attorneys and judges. It includes common legal forms, court opinions, answers to frequently asked questions about the law, virtual tours of several courthouses, webcasts of appellate court arguments and other legal history events.

“We are very proud of the leadership provided by our State Court Administrator Lilia Judson and her staff at JTAC, especially Mary DePrez and our webmaster, Lindsey Borschel, who leads our website development effort. They have produced a website that is innovative, dynamic, and user friendly,” said Chief Justice Shepard.

This is the second prestigious award that the Indiana Judicial System website has received recently. In August, the Indiana Courts Website was ranked third in the world by Justice Served, a California-based court consulting firm that has been reviewing court websites and producing a top ten list for the past seven years. The Indiana Courts site was commended for including content geared toward specific audiences, the online child support calculator, posting appellate opinions, and streaming video.

The Associated Press reports, “Google to Put Copyright Laws to the Test.”

Copyright laws written long before the digital age are about to be tested as Google Inc. attempts to scan millions of books and make their text fully searchable on the Internet.

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To prevent the wholesale file-sharing that is plaguing the entertainment industry, Google has set some limits in its library project: Users won’t be able to easily print materials or read more than small portions of copyright works online.

Google also says it will send readers hungry for more directly to booksellers and libraries.

The Evansville Courier & Press carries an editorial today simply titled, “Time zones.”

From the perspective of deep Southwestern Indiana, this time-zone situation doesn’t look half bad. That is, if the federal government allows it to go forward.

With the passing of Friday’s federal deadline, at least eight Eastern time zone counties in the southern part of the state had asked to be moved to the Central zone.

Those counties, when joined with the five counties already in the Central zone, create a region of common economic and quality-of-life interests. Having them all on the same time works to the benefit of the people living, working, seeking medical care and attending school in that region.

Meanwhile the Journal and Courier Online writes, “Back to an old question: What time is it?”

On Sept 15 I asked whether information sharing between the New York Times and the Washington Post constituted a possible violation of antitrust law. Prof. Shubha Ghosh, of AntitrustProf Blog, responded by writing, “It is not clear how this activity, as described, would have adversely affected competition and market price. My guess is that the practice was a way of assuring some degree of diversity in news reporting and to ensure that one paper did not look too much like the other.” Yet I interpreted the activity’s purpose much differently. Based upon a couple examples cited within the article, the purpose was a “curtesy” to ensure that the other paper did not miss out on a big, substantial story.

Therefore the two newspapers – who in their own admission are direct competitors – have a horizontal agreement fixing output in some respects. Imagine two cereal companies getting together to discuss the ingredients each of them uses in an effort to make sure one’s product isn’t too superior to the other. This may not constitute a violation, but taken to an extreme it very well could.

After a person dies, the survivors often face the tough task of locating important information and documents. Few people, however, are sufficiently organized to have this information gathered in one place which is easy to locate. Instead, survivors have to rummage through the decedent’s belongings and incoming mail to locate the information or clues to assist them in finding it.

In Help Your Survivors, USA Weekend, Sept. 16-18, 2005, at 4, Sharon Epperson lists key documents to which survivors will need access such as burial instructions, burial plot deed, marriage certificate, insurance policies, list of assets and liabilities (including account numbers), location of safe deposit box, and retirement plan information.