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 | | Google aims to make millions of books available on the internet |
Internet search giant Google has promised to make concessions to European publishers as it seeks to win over EU support for its project to make millions of books available online.
The European Commission was due to examine Google's proposal on Monday, amid concerns by some European copyright holders that their exclusive rights could be eroded. The Commission will look at a recent deal Google reached with America's Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers. Last year, Google reached a settlement with the US author and publisher groups on a copyright infringement class action they bought against the company in 2005. Under the settlement, Google agreed to pay $125m dollars to resolve outstanding claims and establish a "Book Rights Registry," which will provide revenue from sales and advertising to authors and publishers who agree to digitise their books. But the deal has been controversial, with Germany complaining that the settlement violates international treaties on authors' rights. European concerns In a bid to soothe the concerns of European publishers and authors, Google has agreed to have two non-US representatives on the board of a body that will administer the US legal settlement, the UK's Financial Times newspaper reported. The newspaper cited a letter sent to 16 EU publishers' representatives at the weekend. "I do believe that the authors' rights may be disregarded for the sake of profit" Robert Pullan, chairman of the Australian Society of Authors But many still have reservations about the scheme. "Google does have the right to earn profit from this plan, considering the amount of money it settled with under the deal," Robert Pullan, chairman of the Australian Society of Authors, said. "But I do believe that the authors' rights may be disregarded for the sake of profit." But Google argues that digitising the world's out of print books and in copyright books in full, it will connect readers with books everywhere on the planet. "If you think that of all the books that have been published since the beginning of time, a very small percentage of books still remain in print," Santiago de la Mora, Google's Book Partnerships Director, said. "This does not mean however that the books that are out of print don't have an audience and I think that conceptually every book has a reader .... with the internet, these books are coming back to life."
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Tags: European publishers Google Books
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