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.
