Google Books' scanning initiative has raised questions of copyright around the world. A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York last week granted class action status [JURIST report] to numerous authors suing Google the initiative, finding that Google has scanned millions of books without consent of the authors, and each author's claim arises out of the same conduct by Google. In March of last year a judge rejected an amended class action settlement agreement that was reached in 2008 between Google and the plaintiffs, who brought the copyright suit [JURIST reports] in 2005. The settlement agreement stated that Google would pay $125 million to the authors and publishers of copyrighted works in exchange for the permission to display up to 20 percent of the work online. The court reasoned that the settlement agreement would allow Google too much freedom to exploit copyrighted works in the future. This ruling came a month after Chin delayed [JURIST report] it because he was not ready.