Google Book Plan Comes Under Scrutiny From EU Copyright Police

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

02 June 2009

Google's online book plan will be scrutinized by the European Union's Executive Body in the early half of June amid fears it could breach copyright laws in the EU.

The investigation by some of the EU's top ministers will try to determine whether or not the online search engine is flouting European copyright laws with its Google Books service.

Several controversial debates have been sparked by the service since its introduction in 2004, when Google began scanning and indexing books in the United States without approval.

In a bid to settle the issue, Google agreed in October of last year to hand a portion of its profits made from matching text advertising to book searches over to the authors in question. An opt-out agreement was also put in place for US authors not wanting their work to be published online.

However, whilst the issue may have been resolved to some extent in the US, it has been raised elsewhere after the German government questioned how this settlement will affect the rights of European authors published in the US.

Specifically, it is Germany's belief that this opt-out scheme is illegal in Europe.

The Ministers will now urge the European Commission to determine whether or not Google Books complies with Europe's copyright laws. Support for the EU's enquiry into the deal - which still requires court approval - has been given by a number of countries.

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