French Publisher Group Strikes Deal With Google Over E-Books; New York Times, 6/11/12

Eric Pfanner, New York Times; French Publisher Group Strikes Deal With Google Over E-Books:

"The French Publishers Association and the Société des Gens de Lettres, an authors’ group, dropped lawsuits in which they contended that Google’s book scanning in France violated copyright. Google agreed to set up a “framework” agreement under which publishers would be able to offer digital versions of their works for Google to sell...

Other digital book initiatives are under way in France; the Parliament recently passed a law authorizing the French National Library to scan so-called orphan works — out-of-print books whose copyright holder cannot be found — for an openly available digital repository. Orphan works would be automatically included unless the rights holders objected within six months."

Google Book Settlement Link Dump Awesomeness, 11/25/08

[Links to lots of information about the Google Book Search Settlement] Via "Google Book Settlement Link Dump Awesomeness":

http://pureinformation.org/archives/2008/11/25/google-book-settlement-link-dump-awesomeness/

OpEd: Editorial: Google Deal or Rip-Off?, Via Library Journal, 12/15/08

OpEd: Via Library Journal: Editorial: Google Deal or Rip-Off?:

"One public access terminal per public library building. Institutional database subscriptions for academic and public libraries that secure once freely available material in a contractual lockbox, which librarians already know too well from costly e-journal and e-reference database deals. No remote access for public libraries without approval from the publisher/author Book Rights Registry, set up to administer the program. And no copying or pasting from that institutional database, though you can print pages for a fee. Of course, you can always purchase the book, too.

Those are just a few of the choice tidbits from the 200-page settlement in the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and Authors Guild three-year-old suit against Google, drawn from Jonathan Band's “Guide for the Perplexed: Libraries and the Google Library Project Settlement.” Band's report was commissioned by the American Library Association and the Association of Research Libraries...

The restrictions were obviously too much for one of the original five Google partners, Harvard University Library (HUL), which criticized the settlement. Robert Darnton, the HUL director, said the deal had “too many potential limitations on access to and use of books” for academia and public libraries and questioned what the price for access would be, given that “the subscription service will have no real competitors.”"

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6618842.html