• Home
• /
• Tech

Google to remove European titles from digital books deal

Internet giant Google will remove all European books currently on the market from a US agreement to digitise and sell online books that were out-of-print in the United States, the company said Monday.

The new position means titles that were no longer available to US consumers but that are still on sale in Europe will not now be included in its database as originally anticipated, a Google spokesperson added.

The company will therefore have to negotiate agreements with European publishers and authors for catalogues and titles in that category which it wants to include in its controversial online project.

“The parties to the settlement agreement have sent a letter to several national publisher associations in Europe to clarify that books that are commercially available in Europe will be treated as commercially available under the settlement,” it said in a statement.

“Such books can only be displayed to US users if expressly authorised by rights holders,” it added as executives began a series of meetings in Brussels on Monday with European Commission officials looking into the issue.

The company’s plans target the tens of millions of books which have fallen out of print but are still under copyright protection, which is estimated to number about 70 percent of all published titles.