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Google makes some European concessions
September 7, 2009 | 7:49 am
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By Paul Biba
According to a letter seen by the Financial Times, Google has agreed to add two Europeans to the board of the registry that is supposed to administer the Book Settlement. The letter was supposedly sent to 16 publishers in the European Union.
Whether this will stem the tide of bitter opposition from many European governments will remain to be seen. You can find more at The Bookseller.
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Comments:
Two people on a board that merely manages a book registry with no say in what Google itself does? That’s pitiful. It’s less than tokenism.
Those who’d like to read the arguments being sent to the court for and against the settlement can find them at The Public Registry:
http://thepublicindex.org/documents/responses
I encourage you to compare the numerous, substantial, and serious objections being made against the settlement, particularly from Europe, with those in favor. The latter tend to be short variations on the same theme: “This is great because I/we won’t have to pay for books anymore.” University libraries, to their great shame, tend to add one more clause, “But don’t let Google charge us too much for this service.”
The one filed by the Federal Republic of Germany is particularly impressive:
http://thepublicindex.org/docs/letters/germany.pdf
Note especially this from it: “The opt out mechanism stands on its head the most fundamental and essential underlying principal of international copyright law and the laws of Germany — exclusivity. Under both U.S. and German copyright law, no one may use an author’s intellectual property without permission.”