Do Copyright Laws Need Updating To Cope With Ebooks?

Google, the internet search giant, has been found guilty of infringing French copyright law by a court in Paris. French publishing house, La Martiniere, was awarded the sum of 300,000 Euros (equivalent to $ 430,000). Google must also pay an additional 10,000 Euros ($ 14,000) each day until the book extracts are withdrawn from Google's database. The action was initiated by the French Publishers' Association, as author's group and La Martiniere.

Google won't be too concerned about the size of the settlement - but the ruling may have a bearing on Google's project to scan as much of the world's books as possible and to make these available online. At the moment, Google is in the process of scanning as many books as it can. Books no longer covered by copyright law are made available in their entirety. Others covered by copyright may either have small sections made available online or have the entire book made available under an agreed licensing scheme.

It's hardly the first time Google has found itself in hot water regarding their ambitious plan to become the world's digital librarian. A class action was filed against Google Books by the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers and a number of individual authors and publishers in 2001. Google had, they alleged, breached copyright laws by scanning books from university libraries without getting permission from the copyright owners in some cases.

At the time, Google asserted that the principle of "fair use" was being met as, for any book where they had not sought the permission of the copyright holder, only small snippets were made available online.

A deal was agreed in October of 2008. Google established a fund of $ 125m to compensate authors whose work was made available online. However, the deal was only applicable in North America and there were still problems with books which, whilst perhaps out of copyright in the U. S., were still covered by copyright law in other countries.

Over and above opposition from Europe, including the governments of both France and Germany, Google now faces competition from Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo, all of whom are now supporting the "Open Book Alliance" operated by the Internet Archive. The Internet Archive - a non-profit based organisation - is also involved in the scanning of books. Up to now, they have scanned more than half a million books. Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, has expressed his concern that Google may be attempting to monopolise the library system.

Google has argued that their system will make millions of out of print books, which would otherwise be inaccessible to most readers, available. Users of the Amazon Kindle can also access out of copyright ebooks via Amazon's Kindle store and there are a number of other projects which make certain books available at no charge online. It does seem likely that our reading habits will change and the method of both book storage and delivery will be updated for the digital age. However, before that can happen it may be necessary to ensure that the legal framework is in place and that authors and other copyright holders are not disadvantaged.

Get free Kindle ebooks direct from Amazon and make your Amazon Kindle reader pay for itself in no time.