The German Government has lodged an objection to the deal which will allow Google to continue to scan, and sell digitised copies of, many of the world’s in-copyright books.
A court will decide in October if a $125 million deal between Google and the US Authors Guild should be permitted. The deal allows Google to scan and sell books that are in copyright but out of print, including ‘orphan works’ whose copyright holder cannot be traced.
Germany, though, has said that the deal should not be allowed to go ahead and that it would undermine the rights of German authors within the US. Its submission also said that the availability of the service outside the US would affect other book markets.
“Once the database is posted, internet users even in Germany will have access to the Google Books Search by using a freely accessible US proxy server,” said the submission, according to the Wall Street Journal. “In other words, even if the digital book database is entirely localized within the United States, it will still be available for search requests from Germany.”
“We hope that the court strikes down the approval of the settlement in the class-action suit, or at least excludes our German authors and publishers from the so-called class so the settlement has no impact on them,” German justice minister Brigitte Zypries told German newspaper Handelsblatt this week.
Continues @ http://www.out-law.com/page-10351
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