Word: copyrighting
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...occurrence. But the French President isn't the only European David ready to stand up to the Internet Goliath and its formidable archiving project. Last October, German Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated concerns held by many German publishers. The German government, she said, rejected "the scanning of books without any copyright protection like Google is doing. We refuse to permit simple scanning of books without full protection of intellectual-property rights." The French and German complaints are part of a growing move in the European Union to head off Google's mass digitization of literature...
...Google has already digitized some 10 million books - most of them "public domain" works that are out of print, or books whose copyright owners are unknown. Google's strategy thus far appears to have been to scan first, and deal with any copyright issues later - a method that worries authors and publishers. Justice authorities in the U.S. and in Europe have warned Google that it should not secure a monopoly position that would allow it to single-handedly dictate how much the public must pay to access many of the world's great books...
...backers - which include industrial partner Sony as well as libraries in the U.S. and Europe - argue that the company brings rare books often only obtainable by students, scholars and researchers to the general public online for free. It says it's also setting aside funding to pay to unknown copyright owners who step up and ask for remuneration, or remove works by those who don't want to be in Google's archive. (See pictures of Google Earth...
...Opponents - these include several European governments and publishers, and the Open Access Alliance formed by authors and Google rivals like Yahoo! and Microsoft - describe that as a kind of massive, literary landgrab which ignores copyright concerns until owners demand they be paid or their books removed. They also fear Google's initially free search-and-access service will give way to a pay scheme. Confusing matters further, libraries, publishers and writers in both the U.S. and Europe are split in pro- and anti-Google Book camps...
...that have been registered in the U.S., or come from the U.K., Australia, and Canada - English-speaking countries whose authors are present in American libraries. That agreement would nominally exclude books from countries like France and Germany, and from China, which has also objected to the digitization project on copyright grounds. Still, the accord must be approved by a U.S. federal court review in February - not a slam-dunk affair, given the American Justice Department's concerns that the agreement still breaks "fundamental copyright principles." (Read "Why Does Google Search Love Examiner.com...