Internet search giant Google has been found guilty of infringing French copyright law by a court in Paris. French publisher, La Martiniere, received 300,000 Euros ($ 430,000) in damages and interest. Google was also required to pay the sum of 10,000 Euros ($ 14,000) each day until it withdraws the book extracts from its database. The court hearing was instigated by the French Publishers’ Association, La Martiniere and SGDL – an author’s group – who demanded that Google be fined 15m Euros ($ 21m).
The size of the final settlement is insignificant for Google – but there may yet be repercussions for Google’s project to scan and make available online as many of the world’s books as possible. Google is currently in the process of scanning and digitising as many books as it can get its hands on. Out of copyright books are made available in their entirety. Books which are in copyright either have short samples of them made available online or have the whole book made available under a licensing scheme.
It’s not the first time Google has found itself in hot water regarding their ambitious plan to become the world’s digital librarian. A class action was raised against Google Books by the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers and a number of individual authors and publishers in 2001. Google had, they claimed, broken copyright laws by scanning books from university libraries without obtaining the required consent from the copyright holders in some cases.
At the time, Google maintained that it was working within the “fair use” principle as only brief sections of books scanned without the permission of copyright owners were made available.
In2008 an agreement was reached with Google setting up a $ 125 million fund to compensate writers whose books were made available online. However, the deal applied in North America only and there were still problems with books which, although out of copyright in America, were still under copyright law in other parts of the world.
As well as opposition from Europe, including both the French and German governments, Google also faces pressure from Microsoft, Amazon and Yahoo who support the “Open Book Alliance” being driven by the Internet Archive. The Internet Archive is a non-profit organisation which scans and digitises books. Up to now, they have scanned over half a million books, all of which are available free. Brewster Kahle, the founder of the Internet Archive, has voiced his concerns that Google seems to be attempting to monopolise the library system.
Google asserts that their project will make millions of out of print books, which would otherwise be inaccessible to most readers, available. Users of the Amazon Kindle reader can also access out of copyright free Kindle books via Amazon’s Kindle store and there are a number of other projects which make certain books available at no charge online. It does seem likely that our literary habits will change and the method of both book storage and delivery will be updated for the digital age. However, before that can happen it may be necessary to make certain that suitable legislation is in place and that author’s and other copyright holders are not disadvantaged.
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