Google Strikes Deal With French Publisher

" Google said Wednesday that it had reached a deal with the publisher Hachette Livre, which has broken ranks with its French rivals and agreed to allow Google to scan thousands of out-of-print books for its digital library project. Under the agreement, which follows a landmark [proposed] settlement with U.S. publishers last year, Google will be allowed to sell the books it scans as e-books or in other electronic formats....But there is one important difference between the U.S. settlement and the deal with Hachette....Hachette, not Google, will determine which of the books covered by the deal — those that remain under copyright but are no longer commercially available — can be scanned....The deal Wednesday is non-exclusive, so Hachette will be able to make the same books available for other electronic selling platforms....A French court in December ruled that Google’s book-scanning project had violated the copyright of three publishers owned by the La Martinière group; Google is appealing the ruling. Several other French publishers, including Gallimard, Flammarion, Albin Michel and Eyrolles, have filed a separate lawsuit, which both sides said was not affected by the agreement announced with Hachette. The agreement could “serve as a framework for other French publishers and maybe other publishers around the world,” Dan Clancy, engineering director of Google Books, said....[Hachette] said the agreement would be “complementary” with Mr. Sarkozy’s [large-scale, publicly-funded digitization] initiative, in that Hachette would turn over to the Bibliothèque Nationale, for free, books that were scanned by Google...."