The Bookseller.com

4th July 2009

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French booksellers against Google deal

18.12.08 Barbara Casassus

French booksellers have joined the chorus of disapproval over Google’s $125m agreement signed late October between the Association of American Publishers and the US Authors Guild.

In a statement this week, the joint digital commission of the two French booksellers associations (Association des Librairies Informatisées & Utilisatrices de Réseaux Electroniques, ALIRE) and the Syndicat de la Librairie Française, SLF) said that although Google recognised the importance of intellectual property to authors and publishers, the associations were concerned about the virtual monopoly the pact would confer on the search engine.

It "could become the sole distributor of digitised books," the statement said. "It would become officially a bookseller as well as publisher of a database that it alone would manage and feed, and in which rightsholders would be obliged to include their remunerated works."

The system for individuals to log in to the database to view books rather than to download them amounts to "rentals and not purchases", the statement added.

The ALIRE and SLF said that they backed the position of the French publishers association (Syndicat national de l’Édition, SNE), the Federation of European Publishers (FPE) and European Booksellers Federation (EBF) over Google, including their opposition to the opt-out only choice for rightsholders to stop their books being digitised. They also reaffirmed their commitment to rights for out-of-print and orphan works, and diversity for all players in the book business though an open market economy.

The UK Booksellers Association was among the first to question the deal when it warned in November that the arrangement could create "a de facto monopoly" and "have a hugely damaging effect on the publishing and bookselling industry" if adopted in the UK. 

The US pact, which was signed on 28th October, is due to be rubber-stamped by a New York court next June.

Meanwhile, no thaw is in sight in relations between Google and French publishers, booksellers and authors over book digitisation. On the contrary, the focus of attention remains lawsuits rather than negotiations, even though no date has been fixed for a court hearing.

Barbara Casassus Google Association of American Publishers Authors Guild digitisation