Google Signs Deal with Hachette Livre to Scan French Out-of-Print Works
“I am especially happy to announce this agreement with Google. It has nothing to do with a waiver of our claims concerning Google's past practices, and everything to do with a new and exciting foundation on which to build a fresh start based on fairness, even-handedness and the acknowledgement of our rights and of those of our authors,” said Arnaud Nourry, Chairman and CEO of Hachette Livre. “It enables us to break the deadlock in an honorable and positive way, while protecting the interests of all parties involved, including those of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, who will at long last have access to works scanned by Google.”
“Today's announcement represents a great step for French authors, Google, Hachette and above all, French readers,” said David Drummond, Google Senior Vice President. “It demonstrates our commitment to preserving and spreading French culture. This is a win-win deal for Google and the French publishing industry. French authors will get new opportunities to sell their books and readers throughout the world will gain access to exciting, hard-to-find French-language books.”
This memorandum of understanding opens a six-month period of fine tuning at the conclusion of which Google and Hachette Livre will hopefully be in a position to sign a binding agreement.
About Hachette Livre
Hachette Livre, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lagardère SCA, is the world's second largest trade book publisher with sales of € 2,273 million. It is #1 in France, #1 in the UK, #2 in Spain and #5 in the USA. It publishes over 17,000 new titles a year under more than one hundred different imprints in a dozen languages, but mainly in French, English and Spanish. It covers all segments of trade publishing: General fiction and non-fiction, mass market pocket books, books for young readers, illustrated books, travel guides, school books, as well as partworks. Its headquarters are in Paris, France.
