The Bookseller.com

30th August 2008

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French resistance crumbles

18.07.08

Has the French resistance begun to crumble, asks Boyd Tonkin in the Independent, referring to Lyon library's decision to sign up with Google Book Search to digitise half a million titles already in the public domain.

"Three years ago, I watched Jens Redmer, head of Google Book Search in Europe, mesmerise a bunch of publishers at a conference in a suitably James Bond-ish resort hotel in Greece. Ernst Stavro Blofeld himself could not have chilled them more. 'There's no evil masterplan behind this,' Redmer assured us."

"Euro-snobbery aside, the doubts persist. Google at present may insist that 'we're not evil' and aspire to safeguard the principle of free access to non-copyright material. But a profit-driven company can't dictate its own future."

Independent

Google France digitisation Lyon