The controversial Google Book Search settlement is getting another kick at the legal can. Last Friday “ more than a year after the original settlement was drafted “ Google and its plaintiffs submitted to the court a modified version of the agreement, aimed at mollifying objections from rightsholders, foreign governments, and the U.S. Department of Justice, among others. According to a post on the Google Public Policy Blog, “The changes we’ve made in our amended agreement address many of the concerns we’ve heard (particularly in limiting its international scope), while at the same time preserving the core benefits of the original agreement: opening access to millions of books while providing rightsholders with ways to sell and control their work online.”

Google has capitulated on at least one contentious issue: the new agreement excludes foreign-language works, although authors and publishers from the three largest English-language speaking countries outside the U.S. “ Canada, the U.K., and Australia “ will be included in the deal. This means that rightsholders from these countries will have representation on the Book Rights Registry board, an independent, not-for-profit group that will administer payments for accessing material through the Google Books Search and will be responsible for tracking down and maintaining current information about rightsholders.

Meanwhile, a fiduciary will be appointed to deal with so-called “orphan” works “ those for which the rightsholder can’t be located. This group is now much smaller than it might have been because, as Paul Aiken of the U.S.-based Authors Guild points out, “the lion’s share” of such disputed works were likely to be foreign-language titles.

There are two other major changes to the agreement. Under the revised settlement, the Book Rights Registry will hold unclaimed funds for 10 years (as opposed to five in the original agreement), after which these monies, if still unclaimed, will be distributed to charities in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia. And potential future business models for Google Books have been limited to individual subscriptions, print-on-demand, and digital downloads. All three need Registry board approval before they can be implemented.

According to The New York Times, although the revised deal is unlikely to smooth all ruffled feathers, Google’s particular interest is in addressing the concerns of the U.S. Department of Justice, which has been looking into the possibility that the agreement violates American antitrust laws. The NYT reports that while the Justice Department will review the new document, their investigation is ongoing.

The Wall Street Journal writes:

Whether the changes will prevent the U.S. Justice Department from taking further steps to oppose it “ and how the agreement will be viewed by U.S. District Court judge Denny Chin, who is responsible for approving it “ remains unclear. Judge Chin is now expected to set a deadline for groups to object to the modifications and a date for a fairness hearing.

People familiar with the matter say Justice Department representatives and the parties expect to continue discussions about some of the issues not addressed in the revised settlement. The agency is expected to file reactions to the modifications around the end of this year or early 2010, based on the timetable established by the court.

Further details about the Google Book Search settlement’s history are available here, here, and here.