Hachette Livre in France, which filed multiple objections to the still-pending Google Books Settlement, announced today “a memorandum of understanding that defines the terms for Google to scan Hachette Livre’s French language books” that effectively substitutes direct agreement for what the settlement had originally proposed for “commercially unavailable” books from around the world. The parties have six months of “fine tuning” to craft a binding agreement, and they envision the agreement as a template whose “basic terms and conditions will be made available to all French publishers.” Like the settlement, the agreement focuses on in-copyright, “commercially unavailable” works published by […]
