In her weekly video podcast, before Tuesday’s opening of the Frankfurt Book Fair, {German Federal Chancellor Angela} Merkel appealed for more international cooperation on copyright protection and said her government opposed Google’s drive to scan libraries full of books.
“The German government has a clear position: copyrights have to be protected in the Internet,” Merkel said, adding there are “considerable dangers” for copyright protection in the Internet.
“That’s why we reject the scanning in of books without any copyright protection — like Google is doing. The government places a lot of weight on this position on copyrights to protect writers in Germany.”
[Snip]
Merkel, who will open the world’s largest book fair in Germany’s financial capital, said there was a need to discuss the issue in greater detail in international institutions.She did not, however, offer any concrete solutions.
Source: Reuters
+++ UPDATE: A text transcript of Merkel’s remarks is available (PDF) in German. We translated the document into English using Zoho Viewer and both Google Translate and Yahoo Babel Fish. Again, these are mechanical translations. Caveat Emptor!
+++ UPDATE: Here’s the actual video podcast (in German).
See Also: Book Trade Seeks a Deal with Google
The rest of the world — especially France and Germany — continues largely to view Google with suspicion. The company is sending its top lawyer to Frankfurt to engage once again with the industry.
“Books that were previously out of print will come back to life,” Santiago de la Mora, Google’s head of European print partnerships, told Reuters. “There are 1.8 billion Internet users. I’m pretty sure you can find readers for everything.”
The article also discusses ebooks and content piracy.
Source: Reuters
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