> ... and they cannot afford to be delayed by any amount of time that is measured in years.
And maybe not by a matter of time measured in months. But how long do court cases take? Years, not months (especially if Google decided to try to make it take longer).
Which is a not unreasonable assumption. It doesn't take much before Google's cost outstrip the cost of settlement, and even if it were to prevail in court it probably wouldn't recover costs
> Without that happening, you are looking at years before getting a result, thousands of dollars of attorney fees and a high likelihood that if they lost they would appeal.
Yes, it will take time if the other side doesn't settle, that's rather the norm in lawsuits. But its reasonably likely there is a contingency fee arrangement in olace, meaning the lawyers get paid with and out of any settlement or judgement.
> This might be more of an emotional lawsuit than a logical one
That's always possible, but you haven't really done much to argue for it being likely.
> so far getting away with it (pending lawsuits notwithstanding).
I know it feels like it's been longer, but it's not even been 2 years since ChatGPT was released. "So far" is in fact a very short amount of time in a world where important lawsuits like this can take 11 years to work their way through the courts [0].
Theoretically no but practically yes. Even if they know they are in the wrong and would loose a court case, they still "win" by just dragging it out and making you go broke on legal fees.
> Google can’t win this fight (if they win) as a defendant
Sure they can (and it's the only way they can), if they win at the Supreme Court, it will be as a Defendant-Appellant. And if, as is often the case, the final formalization of the victory comes on remand back to the trial court from the Supreme Court after the Supreme Court declares the controlling law, that victory will be as a simple Defendant.
> Google harms me in some way. I sue them. They throw an army of lawyers at the case. It takes years. Google wins, case dismissed. I should be on the hook for their legal fees?
That's a separate issue from whether the loser pays: even with automatic loser pays (or in the situations where the loser pays even in the American system) limitations to “reasonable” costs (or actual specific legislated caps) are possible.
> If they don't, Google gets to decide if they put the material back up.
No they don't. If Google decides not to sue (which frankly seems likely given the precedent it risks setting), then they have to put the material back up.
>> But that assumes that Google would settle.
>Which is a not unreasonable assumption
Not sure about Google, but companies like Walmart never settle. For them it's better to have the lawyers tell you "Oh, you're going after Wally, well, that's going to be the next 10 years of your life wasted", then it is to worry about the per litigation costs.
We've been waiting for them to build a strong case for several years. It will likely take several more for it to work its way through the courts. At some point the interests of the public in having a timely curb to Google's actions outweighs the value of preparing a perfect case.
"At the September 15 hearing, Judge Anderson pressed Google to explain how it could have permitted what the court termed an egregious and very significant problem in this case: I'm not understanding how this could happen with what should have been at least two levels of oversight. (9/15/23 DOJ Action Tr. at 52, 54, 59.) As the Court noted: You produced how many documents since the filing of this lawsuit? 1 million. So you're talking about potentially five times what you've produced, and you're saying you thought there was substantial completion done? Its false. It wasnt; was it? (Id. at 55.)
After hearing from Google's counsel, the court stated, It's no excuse and Maybe it wasn't malicious, maybe it wasn't in bad faith, but it clearly was not being done under proper supervision, either internally or externally. And you've put everyone in an unfortunate situation by your failure to do that. (Id. at 56, 58.) The Court appeared further concerned about the delay in jumping on this issue sooner: You've known about this for a month now. You knew about it starting on August 18th. You knew there was a real issue. There didn't seem to be a call to arms then. The first time I heard about it was September 1, and it was this, you know, like, whoops, we've got a problem. It wasn't as clear as I now know how egregious this is. (Id. at 59.)"
And maybe not by a matter of time measured in months. But how long do court cases take? Years, not months (especially if Google decided to try to make it take longer).
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