German Chancellor Tells Google: "You Can't Just Go Around Scanning Books"
On Saturday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel used her weekly video podcast to attack Google and the Google Book Settlement. According to Merkel, the Google Book Settlement disregards international copyright laws. Merkel, who mostly focuses on the upcoming Frankfurt Book Fair in her rather anemic video, also stressed that Germany will do its best to protect German authors against what the government considers to be blatant copyright infringement. Both Germany and France filed complaints against the Google Book settlement last month.
"The Internet Should Not Be Exempt From Copyright Laws"
According to Merkel, the German government wants to protect its authors. Google, according to Merkel, is "just scanning books without any regard to copyright law," and "the Internet should not be exempt from copyright laws," she also adds.
In this context, it is important to note that Germany has always been extremely protective of books as a cultural product. Book retailers, for example, have to sell all new books at a set price and can only discount older or damaged books under a limited set of circumstances. It's currently not clear if these price-fixing rules also apply to eBooks.
"eBooks Won't Replace Traditional Books"
Merkel also stressed that she doesn't believe that eBooks will ever replace traditional books - though she does mention that 'new' technologies like audio books have changed the book market over the last few years.
Google Books and the Google Book Settlement have obviously been mired in controversy from the beginning. Just last week, Google's Sergey Brin defended the project in an op-ed piece in the New York Times. The Google Book Settlement is currently on hold, and Google has until November to present a revised version of its plan.
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What, she didn't say "Das Internet darf kein rechtsfreier Raum sein!" (roughly translated to "The Internet must not be a room without any laws")?
Because that's what our "top" politicians think (and repeat over and over again).
That the internet is a room (heck, even a series of tubes is better...) and that there are no laws (despite especially Germany having a lot lawsuits over minor stuff like a wrong or missing imprint on websites).
Angela Merkel is an extremely smart person, but she is most likely wrong on the future of ebooks, although I would agree that the current technological state of ebooks is a limiting factor (as pertains to readability, interactivity, and so forth) and that it will be a while before regular books are reduced to a niche market for too many reasons to list here.
I do not know the finer legal details of the settlement, but Google should be commended for their vision and execution, which seems legally and morally clear to me (that cannot be said of every large corporation). Reading Bryn's op-ed, it seems to me that Google is more than willing to listen to all parties involved and to adjust the details of their vision's implementation to satisfy everyone.
I'm interested about the Germans opinions. Every time I heard "the government is worried about the citizenships rights" I automatically translate to: "the government is worried about the big corporations rights".
E-Books aren't flammable.
What she doesn't get is that it isn't about making all books available to the public for free. Its about making all books searchable and through that letting information and knowledge spread, which could be a huge benefit for everyone (exspecially scientists).
But her party (Christian Democratic Party) is way to conservative to get the internet, which has been lately shown by trying to censor the web (for the beginning just childporn pages, but it looks like more to come).
Angela Merkel is the first high level political figure that I have heard call for revised international copyright legislation. She is absolutely right, without this the arguments will go around in ever decreasing circles - and we all know what happens then.
Well said Angela, let's stop kicking the consequences to and fro and get back to a basic reconstruction of international copyright law.
Chris Warren
Author and Freelance Writer
Randolph's Challenge Book One - The Pendulum Swings
(Frankfurt Book Fair - AEG Publishing Group booth Hall 8 on stand N959)
Just might point out here that about half of this number was Russian. And you never hear them whining about their holocaust, just their motherland. Now Hitler only had a Fatherland. And the Jews had no homeland at all.
Maybe that's why the Russians have some anti-semitic ownership laws, nobody is going to screw our motherland again any which way.
old lady, ebooks will not only replace traditional books, they will also replace you!
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