German Chancellor Angela Merkel"s chief culture adviser welcomed Monday the removal of German books from search giant Google"s project to create a world online library, and said Europe must solve the "orphan works" dilemma on its own, reported the dpa. Google has included the content of 10 million books in its search engine, including many "orphan" books which are still covered by copyright law although the authors are dead and their heirs practically unfindable. Bernd Neumann, state minister for culture, said, "To make progress with the European Digital Library and national digital libraries, we urgently need a solution to the problem of the so-called orphan works." He was referring to plans for European governments to make digital copies of old books. Under a revised deal last Friday between Google and US publishers, a new US agency, the unclaimed works fiduciary (UWF), would have powers to republish the "orphan works." Currently it is illegal in European countries to republish books without copyright. Neumann welcomed the Friday agreement as "a step in the right direction." The new deal confines the Google Books project to US, British, Canadian and Australian books, removing most existing books in German, the second main language in Europe. "The changes show that criticism from Europe, especially from France and Germany, was heard in the right places," Neumann said. He said Berlin had not just been critical, but also wanted to pursue its own plans to digitize German books. --SPA
