Google pushes German-language publishers to the wall
Although Google has illegally scanned German-language books and posted them online, German-language publishers will not file a lawsuit but will instead join the settlement reached by publishers in the United States. The reason: The publishers cannot afford a legal battle with the global corporation.
Google has so far scanned around seven million books for its book search without the consent of the copyright holders, including tens of thousands of German-language works. In the USA, publishers therefore took legal action against Google and reached a settlement in the fall of 2008 (see: Protection from Google: German-speaking authors and publishers are gearing up). The German-language publishers, who were not part of the settlement, were not satisfied with this and took legal action against the settlement.
However, it has now become known that publishers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland want to save themselves the "huge financial and nerve-wracking effort" of legally challenging the global corporation, as Dani Landolf, Managing Director of the Swiss Booksellers and Publishers Association (SBVV), explained. This is despite the fact that the search engine operator has clearly acted illegally and stolen the works from the rights holders. The publishers will reluctantly agree to the settlement reached in the USA, which is intended to provide them with compensation per book plus a share of Google's advertising revenue.
However, it has now become known that publishers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland want to save themselves the "huge financial and nerve-wracking effort" of legally challenging the global corporation, as Dani Landolf, Managing Director of the Swiss Booksellers and Publishers Association (SBVV), explained. This is despite the fact that the search engine operator has clearly acted illegally and stolen the works from the rights holders. The publishers will reluctantly agree to the settlement reached in the USA, which is intended to provide them with compensation per book plus a share of Google's advertising revenue.
