Google faces book case trial in France

French publishers and authors face off in court against Google when their three-year bid to fight the Internet giant's plan to sell books.

French publishers and authors face off in court against Google on Thursday when their three-year bid to fight the Internet giant's plan to scan and sell books online goes to trial.

"We need to be able to deal with Google on a solid legal basis," said SGDL Herve de la Martiniere, whose eponymous publishing group controls the Seuil publishing house, which in June 2006 filed the complaint against Google France and Google inc.

Backed by France's 530-member Publishers' Association (SNE) and its SGDL Society of Authors, the plaintiffs are contesting Google's 2005 campaign to digitize books without the prior authorisation of publishers or authors.

"It is unacceptable that someone would arrogantly take your books and digitize them without asking," de la Martiniere told AFP.

He reckons 3,000 to 4,000 works published by his group have been digitized by Google without his consent.

Controversy over the 2005 Google Book Search plan has been particularly strong in France since the launch of talks in August between Google and France's National Library, the BNF.

The BNF's move to digitize its collections with Google's help due to the huge cost of the process has triggered a storm of protest.

And earlier this month, the government slammed Google's plan to create the world's largest digital library and online bookstore, saying it does not conform to either "intellectual property law or to competition law and constitutes a threat to cultural diversity."

The remarks were made by the culture ministry in a submission to the New York court considering the legality of Google's plans. The submission argued that the deal would undermine French authors' rights.

The Internet giant responded by offering to remove all books still on sale in Europe from a US online market offering millions of titles that are out of print in the United States.

And Google France reiterated that "our goal is to give fresh life to millions of books that are out of stock or difficult to find, while respecting authors' copyright."

Thursday's court case in Paris comes as Google and US authors and publishers agree to go back to the drawing board to revise a controversial legal settlement on the same issue.

The US Justice Department had said the book-scanning project "has the potential to breathe life into millions of works that are now effectively off limits" but it raises copyright and anti-trust issues in its current form.

Google and the authors and publishers reached the settlement last year to a copyright infringement suit they filed against the Mountain View, California, company in 2005.

Under the settlement, Google agreed to pay 125 million dollars to resolve outstanding claims and establish an independent "Book Rights Registry," which would provide revenue from sales and advertising to authors and publishers who agree to digitize their books.

But Microsoft, Amazon and Yahoo! filed objections to the settlement with the court along with the

French and German governments, privacy advocates and consumer watchdog groups.

The Justice Department raised a number of issues in opposing the settlement.

It said that at presently the settlement would give Google sole authority over so-called "orphan works" -- books whose copyright holder cannot be found -- and books by foreign rights holders.

The department recommended providing additional protections for unknown rights holders and addressing the concerns of foreign authors and publishers.

It also proposed setting up a mechanism by which Google's competitors can gain comparable access to book collections.