U.S. District Judge Denny Chin has granted preliminary approval to the revised Google Book Settlement, which was filed on Friday.  He has set the date for the fairness hearing on February 18th, 2010.

The Open Book Alliance, of which SFWA is a member, has a  post-mortem of the revised settlement on their website, as has SFWA’s own Victoria Strauss. OBA released a statement today in response to the preliminary approval.

“Today, in an expected procedural move, Judge Denny Chin granted preliminary approval to the revised Settlement of Google’s copyright infringement lawsuit. This is not a surprising development and is not any indication that the court will or will not accept the terms of Settlement 2.0. The same procedural preliminary approval was given to Settlement 1.0, and now sets up a court process that will allow those opposed to the revised settlement to let their objections known to the court. The U.S. Department of Justice has until February 4th to weigh in with the court, as their investigation into the matter continues.”

SFWA will continue to keep you posted as events develop.