Google will listen to 21 speakers against the digital books settlement today at a fairness hearing in New York, where the French and German governments are the only governmental opponents of the deal. Other opponents include companies like Amazon and Microsoft, among others.
The US settlement would pave the way for Google to develop a $125m Book Rights Registry in a compromise the company had reached with the American Authors Guild last year, which would see authors receive a majority cut of each sale.
If Judge Denny Chin approves the settlement, Google will be able to display books with varying levels of access, sell books from the site and provide a subscription service to its library of over 12 million books.
Publishing executives allege that Google was only able to strike a deal with authors because the American guild ran out of money.
Chin, who sent con-artist Bernie Madoff to prison for 150 years, is "favourable" to the settlement, say onlookers. But he will face pressure from the US Department of Justice, who want the judge to scrap the settlement.
Book Rights Registry under scrutiny
The settlement has been tipped as a landmark case that will steer books even further into the digital age, but its critics argue that the agreement will strengthen the search engine's monopoly over the booming digital books market.
Previously, the settlement had no explicit geographical limits. However, after objections from the French and German governments, Google decided to redraw the scope of the agreement to English-language books in the US, Canada, the UK and Australia only.
Under the deal, Google would be able to start scanning as yet untouched libraries of books whose rightsholders are either unknown – so called 'orphan works' – or copyrighted works whose authors have given the search engine permission to scan their books.
Critics argue that authors may not be aware their works will be scanned. Google, however, maintains that authors' rights are respected as they will be able to opt-out of the agreement if they want to.
EU against Google registry plan
In Europe, authors and publishers principally object to the fact that they would not be told if they were on the list of books to be digitised.
"There is no effective mechanism that allows publishers to know if they are covered by the settlement," a spokesperson for the Federation of European Publishers told EurActiv.
The European Commission has recognised it is on the back foot in finding a European solution to rights clearance of digital works.
"For the Commission, the discussions around the settlement confirm, once again, that it is urgent for the EU to swiftly find its own solution for making digitised in-copyright works - in whatever language - available to European citizens, while ensuring full respect of European law and principles, notably copyright and competition law," read a statement from previous EU Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding.
However, Reding said that the Google registry would not be a blueprint for a European equivalent.
In a position paper published last year, Reding hinted that work on a European registry was underway. However, she also encouraged collaboration between Google, national libraries and a pan-European online library, Europeana, to ensure that the search engine did not have a monopoly on access to cultural works.
Currently, a network of databases for out-of-print and orphan works called ARROW is in the project phase, say the FEP.
"ARROW would facilitate rights clearance as the database would allow libraries – and even Google – to see the copyright status of a work," the FEP spokesperson added.
