By The Wall Street Journal
Making concessions to European publishers, online-search giant Google Inc. Monday said it will remove all European books that are still commercially available from its $125 million program to scan orphaned and out-of-print books in the U.S. and sell them online.
The concessions come after concerns were voiced by European authors and publishers who don't want the company to scan books by European authors that are still protected by copyrights, without asking their permission.The new position means books that are no longer available to U.S. consumers but are still on sale in Europe won't be included in Google's scanned catalogs, unless the author expressly wants to be included, Google said.
In the U.S., Google has reached a settlement with publishers that will allow it to scan and post online all out-of-copyright and out-of-print books, for which owners are hard to identify. Due to complex copyright rules, the U.S settlement will only apply to users in that country.
Previously, European rights holders whose books were out of print, or had never been published in the U.S., were considered to have opted for the scanning process.
It's a step in the right direction, [but] it's not enough for our members to sleep peacefully.
To alleviate European concerns, Google has also promised to have two non-U.S. representatives on the governing board of the Books Rights Registry, which is to govern the settlement. One of its jobs is to find authors for out-of-print books that are being scanned by Google, and redistribute any earnings coming through the book search. Books are orphaned if they are protected under copyright, but the rights holder is nearly impossible to identify.
Google decided to clarify its European position following complaints, especially from German publishers, that were concerned that their authors were being illegally scanned in the U.S. Several European publishing associations say they plan to send their objections to the U.S. District Court judge who is holding a hearing on the Google deal in New York in early October.
A lot of the European concerns had been already addressed in the U.S. settlement and the emphasis on rights-holder control should put minds at ease.
