Once in a while, I feel the need to let the snark out–particularly if it’s a case where I’m pretty sure nobody’s going to get their feelings hurt.
This is one of those times.
Here’s a quote from a March 2009 discussion of the proposed Google Books Settlement:
…in late October 2008, Google announced a proposed settlement of the lawsuit. While the settlement hasn’t received final approval, it’s on its way.
I have a strong sense that the writer thought of “it’s on its way” as “…probably within a few months.”
It’s now October 2010–two full years after the proposed settlement was announced, 17 months after that statement appeared. I’ve heard nothing to suggest that GBS is on the verge of final approval, and some indications that it might never be approved, at least not without substantial changes.
Who wrote that naively optimistic assessment? Well, it appears on Page 1 of Cites & Insights 9:4 (March 2009), and the author’s name appears about 1.5 inches above that quote.
I would have sworn that I said “a few months” as the time frame for settlement approval, but it appears that I missed that entirely boneheaded assertion.
Since then? I’ve tagged a few select commentaries and news items in delicious, on the assumption that it might be worth doing a commentary after the thing was finally settled. “A few” now numbers 186, an absurdly large set of source documents for any reasonable C&I commentary. There may be some action on a case related to GBS toward the end of October (2010); then again, there might not be.
Almost as silly, on that same front page, I said that the AAP/AG suit against Google was “in court for a long time.” It was filed in 2005. The proposed settlement was three years later. For some reason, I thought that three years counted as “a long time.” Apparently not.
[In the meantime, I added one more to the tiny set of commentators whom I avoid quoting or commenting on because they seem to believe that disagreeing with anything they say is tantamount to disagreeing with everything they say. Such is life.]
The only thing of substance I’ve heard is that Judge Chin is still on the case after being confirmed by the U.S. Senate for a seat on the appellate court six months ago.