Browser battles French publishers will try to persuade a Paris court on Thursday that Google’s ambitious project to digitise millions of books held in US libraries breaches France’s copyright laws.
The case is believed to be the first time that Google’s scheme has been tested in court outside the US. The company last year reached a settlement with US publishers although this is due to be reviewed by a court in New York next month.
The French hearing comes amid mounting European opposition to Google’s drive to scan millions of books and make excerpts of them available to internet searchers. The European Commission held hearings earlier this month on the Google book project.
French publishers say Google has never negotiated with them about its digitisation scheme even though the millions of works held in US libraries already scanned by the company include thousands of French titles.
“It is an infernal machine, it never stops,” said Serge Eyrolles, president of the Syndicat National de l’Edition (SNE), which represents 80 per cent of the French publishing industry. “It is a disgrace. It is cultural rape.”
The case against Google was originally brought by La Matinière, whose imprints include Le Seuil in France and Abrams in the US, in 2005. The SNE has since associated itself with the legal challenge.
The publishers contend that the scanning of in-copyright books without their permissions contravenes French law. They also argue the Google’s scheme runs counter to the Berne convention, a long-standing agreement under which copyright owners do not have to register in every country to protect their rights.
The French publishing industry believes the French court case could prove an important legal landmark because US publishers – outgunned by Google’s superior legal resources – struck a deal before properly testing whether the internet giant’s project breached copyright law.
French publishers point out that French law offers more protection to copyright holders because it does not include the “fair use” exception to copyright breaches contained in US law. Google has often cited the “fair use” principle to defend its scanning project.
Google France declined to comment before the court hearing.
The French publishers’ court action is aimed at the legality of Google’s scanning effort. But they are also up in arms about the terms of the settlement reached between the company and US publishers (which include the US subsidiaries of some French publishers, such as Hachette) which they say discriminates against foreign publishers.
The publishers and the French government have sent submissions opposing the settlement to the Manhattan court reviewing its legality.
Under the settlement, Google has the right to distribute digitised books which are out of print and whose copyright holders cannot be traced, which the French say breaches the Berne convention.
The publishers say the settlement also allows Google to determine in advance whether a book is out of print on the basis of whether or not it is available through US bookstores, which are not known for their large range of French titles.
The publishers argue that it is only by signing up to Google’s settlement that they can ask the company to withdraw the books that it has already digitised.
France’s attitude to Google’s book project is more nuanced than the court case would indicate. The French National Library recently revealed that it was in negotiations with Google about digitising its collection because the costs of doing it itself were too high.
While defending French legal rights, Frédéric Mitterrand, culture minister, earlier this month urged against “contrasting two caricatured, confrontation visions of technology versus cultural heritage, Google versus Europeana (its European equivalent), France versus America, Asterix against Goliath”.
Arnaud Nourry, chief executive of Hachette, the world’s second largest book publisher by sales, told the FT last month that publishers wanted to work with Google but it had to show itself to be “more reasonable”.
