The French Publishers Association and several publishers are likely to file a lawsuit against Google during the Paris Book Fair later this month for digitising hundreds of French books without permission...France would be the first European country to take action against Google, following in the footsteps of the Association of American Publishers...The French titles that Google is scanning--the most recent of which were published in the 1970s--come from Michigan University under an agreement with the search engine. The university has 500,000 French language titles. Google has yet to respond to the French Publishers Association's (Syndicat National de l'Edition) demand to withdraw the titles. It has offered an opt-out arrangement, but this is unacceptable to the SNE, which accuses the company of infringing copyright law.
Comment. Fair use law in the US probably favors Google but I have no idea how Google might fare under French law. Note, however, that when it looked as if Google wouldn't digitize French books, it was savaged by the country's president and national librarian, and when it looked as if it would digitize French books after all, it was threatened by French publishers. I'm glad that publishers and governments don't always see eye to eye, but maybe French people should tell their publishers that they're not acting in the interests of French readers or French authors.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/03/2006 11:08:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
