Aoife White, AP, via Yahoo; Google Books moves to reassure EU publishers:
"Google sought to assure European copyright holders that the deal wouldn't infringe their rights, saying it wrote to several national publisher associations "to clarify that books that are commercially available in Europe will be treated as commercially available under the settlement."...
Unlike the U.S., Google is only scanning European books over 150 years of age to avoid infringing copyrighted material. So far, it has scanned some 10 million books — many of them still in copyright.
Google Books has strong advocates and harsh critics in Europe. While library associations pleaded for Europeans to have more access to the content available to U.S. users of Google Books, some rights holders complained that Google was creating a dangerous new monopoly...
Some European libraries see the project more favorably. Sylvia Van Peteghem, the chief librarian of Belgium's Ghent University, said her work with Google had prompted users to increasingly seek out paper versions of scanned books.
"It's a revival of old books," she said, praising a project that created a digital backup of books that can easily be damaged or stolen.
LIBER, the League of European Research Libraries, said it wants Google to show that it will act as a long-term trustee for printed material and provide ways for scanned books to be available for decades to come.
European officials have also called for a debate — and possibly new rules — to clarify what can be done with "orphan" books that are still in copyright but which cannot be reprinted or digitized because the copyright holders cannot be traced."
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Google-Books-moves-to-apf-3368778091.html?x=0&.v=1
Showing posts with label European publishers and authors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label European publishers and authors. Show all posts
Monday, September 7, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Europe Divided on Google Book Deal; New York Times, 8/24/09
Kevin J. O'Brien and Eric Pfanner via New York Times; Europe Divided on Google Book Deal:
"The proposed U.S. legal settlement giving Google the right to sell digital copies of millions of books is dividing publishers and authors in Europe, which has struggled to develop viable alternatives to Google’s ambitious book digitization project.
Some big European publishers, like Oxford University Press, and Bertelsmann and Holtzbrinck, which own Random House and Macmillan respectively, support the agreement, which remains subject to approval by a U.S. judge. They see the pact as greatly expanding the visibility of their archives for online purchase. But opposition to the deal, which would allow U.S. consumers to buy online access to millions of books by European authors whose works were scanned at U.S. libraries, is mounting.
There is widespread opposition among French publishers, and the government of Germany, along with national collection societies in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Spain, plan to argue against it and encourage writers to pull out of the agreement...
Some are also concerned about a lack of European representation on the Book Rights Registry, a panel that is supposed to collect and distribute revenue from Google’s U.S. book sales to authors and publishers."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/technology/internet/24iht-books.html
"The proposed U.S. legal settlement giving Google the right to sell digital copies of millions of books is dividing publishers and authors in Europe, which has struggled to develop viable alternatives to Google’s ambitious book digitization project.
Some big European publishers, like Oxford University Press, and Bertelsmann and Holtzbrinck, which own Random House and Macmillan respectively, support the agreement, which remains subject to approval by a U.S. judge. They see the pact as greatly expanding the visibility of their archives for online purchase. But opposition to the deal, which would allow U.S. consumers to buy online access to millions of books by European authors whose works were scanned at U.S. libraries, is mounting.
There is widespread opposition among French publishers, and the government of Germany, along with national collection societies in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Spain, plan to argue against it and encourage writers to pull out of the agreement...
Some are also concerned about a lack of European representation on the Book Rights Registry, a panel that is supposed to collect and distribute revenue from Google’s U.S. book sales to authors and publishers."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/technology/internet/24iht-books.html
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