Copyright Problems May Slow Digital Book Libraries

Internet search giant Google has been found guilty of copyright infringement by a court in Paris. French publisher, La Martiniere, was awarded 300,000 Euros ($ 430,000) in damages and interest. Google was also ordered to pay the sum of 10,000 Euros ($ 14,000) each day until it withdraws the book extracts from its database. The court hearing was initiated by the French Publishers' Association, La Martiniere and SGDL - an author's group - who demanded that Google be forced to pay 15m Euros ($ 21m).

Google won't be too concerned about the size of the settlement - but the ruling may have a bearing on Google's project to scan as much of the world's books as possible and to make these available online. At the moment, Google is in the process of scanning as many books as it can. Books no longer covered by copyright law are made available in their entirety. Others covered by copyright may either have small sections made available online or have the entire book made available under an agreed licensing scheme.

It's not the first time that Google has had to go to court regarding their plan to make books available in a digital library. The Author's Guild, the Association of American Publishers and a number of independent publishers and individual authors filed a class action against Google in 2001. They alleged that Google had breached copyright law by digitising books from university libraries without, in some cases at least, seeking the consent of the copyright holders.

At the time, Google asserted that the principle of "fair use" was being met as, for any book where they had not sought the permission of the copyright holder, only small snippets were made available online.

In 2008 an agreement was reached with Google establishing a $ 125 million fund to provide compensation for authors who had their works made available online. However, the deal covered North America only and there were still concerns regarding books which, whilst out of copyright in America, were still bound by copyright law in other parts of the world.

As well as opposition from Europe, including both the German and French governments, Google faces competition from Yahoo, Microsoft and Amazon - who all support the "Open Book Alliance" run by the Internet Archive. The Internet Archive is a non-profit organisation which is also in the business of scanning and digitising books. Over half a million books have been scanned and stored by the Internet Archive to date, all of which are available free online. The founder of the Internet Archive, Brewster Kahle, is concerned that Google is attempting to monopolise the library system.

Google has argued that their system will make millions of out of print books, which would otherwise be inaccessible to most readers, available. Users of the Amazon Kindle can also access out of copyright ebooks via Amazon's Kindle store and there are a number of other projects which make certain books available at no charge online. It does seem likely that our reading habits will change and the method of both book storage and delivery will be updated for the digital age. However, before that can happen it may be necessary to ensure that the legal framework is in place and that authors and other copyright holders are not disadvantaged.

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