Google book project offers concessions to EU
Last Updated: Monday, September 7, 2009 | 9:41 AM ET
The Associated Press
Google is taking heat from fellow tech giants, including Microsoft, Yahoo and Amazon, for its plan to digitize books. (Mark Lennihan/Associated Press)Internet search leader Google said Monday it is making concessions to European publishers to try and assuage worries over its Google Books project, which aims to put many hard-to-find books online.
Google's digital library has raised hackles among internet rivals such as Microsoft, Yahoo and Amazon and triggered fears among some European copyright holders that their exclusive rights could be eroded.
Google spokesman Bill Echikson said the company would try to take these concerns into account and would appoint two European representatives to a registry that oversees the project — one representative for authors and one for publishers.
He also said that Google would do more to check that English-language editions of books originally published in a European language weren't wrongly listed as out-of-print in the United States. Publishers feared that adding such books to the Google library would cost them sales and hurt their right to sell books in their catalogue.
The European Commission is Monday holding a hearing to examine the effect of Google's 10-month settlement with U.S. authors and publishers on copyright holders in the European Union.
Unlike with U.S. books, Google is only scanning European books older than 150 years to avoid infringing copyrighted material.
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