The Bookseller.com

4th July 2009

« Headlines

German publishers step up Google fight

11.10.07

German publishers stepped up their battle to tame the Google Books search engine, launching a search machine of their own, but a leading US publishing executive suggested at the Frankfurt Book Fair that the grudge match might soon be over, reports Deutsche Presse.

Accustomed to tough copyright laws, the German book industry accuses US-based Google of 'stealing' books when it indexes their complete text so as to tell Google users which book contains a wanted word or phrase.

US publishers and authors began legal action two years against Google, but those cases are reportedly still at a preliminary stage.

At the Frankfurt Book Fair, Peter Olson, New York-based chief executive of the world's biggest book publishing group, Random House, said: " think we are close to resolving our issues. We have so much in common."

You can read The Bookseller Daily's report here.

Deutsche Presse

digital Google Random House