Balkinization
an unanticipated consequence of
Jack M. Balkin
E-mail:
Jack Balkin: jackbalkin at yahoo.com
Ian Ayres: ian.ayres at yale.edu
Mary Dudziak: mdudziak at law.usc.edu
Heather Gerken heather.gerken at yale.edu
Mark Graber: mgraber at law.umaryland.edu
Stephen Griffin sgriffin at tulane.edu
Bernard Harcourt harcourt at uchicago.edu
Scott Horton shorto at law.columbia.edu
Andrew Koppelman akoppelman at law.northwestern.edu
Marty Lederman: marty.lederman at comcast.net
Sanford Levinson slevinson at law.utexas.edu
David Luban david.luban at gmail.com
Linda McClain lmcclain at bu.edu
Neil Netanel netanel at law.ucla.edu
Frank Pasquale pasquale.frank at gmail.com
Michael Stokes Paulsen michaelstokespaulsen at gmail.com
Deborah Pearlstein dpearlst at princeton.edu
Rick Pildes pildes at juris.law.nyu.edu
Alice Ristroph alice.ristroph at shu.edu
Brian Tamanaha: tamanahb at stjohns.edu
Mark Tushnet: mtushnet at law.harvard.edu
Over at The Laboratorium, James Grimmelmann announces The Public Index, a site devoted to discussing (and understanding) the complicated proposed Google Book Search settlement. Gimmelmann explains:
The groundbreaking proposed settlement in the Google Book Search case is so complex that controversy has outpaced conversation and questions have outnumbered answers. We aim to help close these gaps. The Public Index is a website featuring a collection of tools and resources for those wishing to learn about the settlement or to express opinions about it.
The centerpiece of the site is an interactive version of the proposed settlement. Users can search freely, browse by section, or read through it in a hierarchical view that retains the settlement’s indentation structure. Hyperlinks allow users to look up any defined term or cross-reference with a single click. A paragraph-by-paragraph commenting system allows them to annotate individual portions of the settlement with their own commentary. To encourage further discussion, the site also provides a full set of bulletin-board forums.
In addition, the Public Index offers a reading room of essential settlement-related documents:
* a complete, categorized set of filings from the lawsuit * Google’s agreements with cooperating libraries * scholarly and popular essays from all points of view * a timeline with links to news about the lawsuits and settlement * links to a wide range of commentary on blogs
The Public Index also includes an open-source version of the New York Law School amicus brief to the court. The site includes a draft of the brief in a user-editable wiki; Public Index users are invited to mark it up with their corrections, criticisms, and suggestions. Changes from the Public Index will be incorporated into the brief before it is filed in September. Visitors are also encouraged to use the wiki to collaborate on their own, alternative amicus briefs.