Judge Chin has issued his order governing procedures for the conduct of the fairness hearing on February 18.

26 individuals and groups have asked to speak at the hearing. They will be allotted five minutes each. (“The Court urges parties with overlapping concerns to coordinate their remarks to avoid duplication. The Court will also, of course, review all written submissions.”) They will be followed by the United States, and then by the parties.

The hearing will be in Courtroom 23B, where seating will be reserved for those speaking. “Overflow seating will be available in Courtroom 11A, where video of the proceeding will be provided.”

I love that France, Germany, and Connecticut are objecting.

Five minutes? Is this incredibly brief time in which to explain complicated issues usual?

Will Google, the AG and Publishers file further,closing, briefs, including a report from Rust of proof of service,numbers of opt outs and objectors,prior to the hearing and when??

Surprising that Lynn Chu is not appearing, and noteworthy that there is no speaking objector on behalf of Australian authors.

I am intrigued that the objection hitherto referred to under the name of the first listed objector as the objection of “Carl Hanser Verlag et al” appears in Judge Chin’s order as the objection of the last listed objector “the New Zealand Society of Authors et al”. Could this be because Judge Chin dictated the order and was not confident that he could pronounce any of the foreign-language names correctly? Or, if he could pronounce them correctly, was he concerned that his secretary would have trouble spelling them correctly? Or is there some other explanation?

Jerome

Publishing is Australia’s only remaining protected industry, there are real barriers to free market competition, imports ect that it shelters behind.

therefore its not that surprising that many here are either indifferent or supportive of an attempt to impose a ‘tariff barrier’ on free trade on the net, in order to protect big business and collectively represented labor from market forces.

Lynley,

I doubt that Judge Chin has any difficulties pronouncing non-English names. He grew up in New York City, is very well educated, and has practiced law in New York for his entire career. Given the diversity of the city’s population and the diversity of his experience, he must have encountered many non-English names.

You are correct to think that the more typical listing of a group would be to name the first objector and refer to the rest as “et al.” However, in this case, the New Zealand Society of Authors submitted a letter objecting to the settlement (Doc. No. 868), in addition to their attorney, Cynthia Arato, filed a brief for them and others. So listing the group as “the New Zealand Society of Authors, et al” makes it clearer that Ms. Arato will rely on both the brief and the letter in her argument.

Moreover, it is quite likely that one of Judge Chin’s law clerks drafted the order for him, and put it in final form for his signature, rather than his dictating the order to his secretary. I’m one of the objectors speaking, but I am not on the Court’s electronic filing system. Because of that, one of the law clerks called me to get my email address so she could send me a copy of the order.

The thing that intrigues me about the order is that Judge Chin seems to have such an old printer. His orders in this case look more like they were typed on an IBM Selectric than a present day computer with an $80 Epson printer.

Of course, there are currently some big US law firms paying recent law school graduates salaries to not work that are comparable to the salaries of Federal judges. So I suppose it should not be surprising if the court has low quality equipment.

Some big US law firms paying recent law school graduates salaries to not work ….Uh?

Actually, I’m not sure what has happened with 2009 law school graduates; but I do know that some big firms that had already hired 2008 grads, did not bring the new associates on board, but still paid them. It was because of the economic downturn. The firms did not want to lose their new recruits and, apparently hoped the economy would improve. (Firms spend a lot to recruit new associates, and would lose that investment if the recruits go elsewhere.)

At any rate, the point that I was trying to make is that US Federal Judges are not particularly well paid for their work, and that most of them could earn far more in the private sector. Generally speaking, Federal judges are intelligent, well qualified people who are committed to public service.

Like many others, I feel that they deserve to paid more. It seems ridiculous that Americans have no problem with athletes earning millions, while we scrimp on the salaries of our judges, who are doing work that is far more important to society.

From our own experience in Australia Yes “they deserve to paid more”.

However the more useless and unimportant something is, the greater potential it has to become a object of prestige.

Lynn Chu has now filed a request to appear, and has been added to the list.