German Publishers Are Not Thrilled with Google
November 2, 2008
News and commentary about Google is everywhere I look in central Europe. I can’t reveal my location because I can’t spell the name of the city I’m in. Too many consonants. The buzz at dinner this evening (I am writing this at about midnight on what I think is October 30, 2008) was about German publishers and Google. In the US, Google has entered into a truce with publishers about book scanning. I have been critical of the “dead tree crowd” for many years, and now Google has new diners in the Google cafeteria.
According to Deutsche Welle here, “German publishers [are] accusing Google of controlling culture.” That’s a broad claim, but the new story makes this point, which I found interesting:
“This accord is like a Trojan Horse,” Alexander Skipis, chief executive of the Boersenverein, said in a statement on Thursday, Oct. 30. “Google aims to achieve worldwide control of knowledge and culture. “In the name of cultural diversity, this American model is out of the question for Europe,” he said, adding that it contradicted “the European ideal of diversity through competition.”
Deutsche Welle’s news story is quoting a highly regarded publishing professional, and I think Mr. Skipis is beginning to understand what it means to organize the world’s information. On one hand, I understand the feeling embedded in Mr. Skipis’ comment. On the other hand, the GOOG has been doing its thing for 10 years. The GOOG is a publicly traded company. The GOOG has been using its business model and plumbing like giant earth movers to shift the boundaries of business sectors.
My net net: you haven’t seen anything yet. You will be able to read about it in my new Google and Publishing monograph in December, however. If you want to reserve a copy, navigate to the www.infonortics.com Web site. Contact information is there but a separate order form is not yet online due my heel dragging and the clean up for Martin White’s and my new study Successful Enterprise Search Management due out in November 2008 unless a glitch occurs.
Stephen Arnold, November 1, 2008
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2 Responses to “German Publishers Are Not Thrilled with Google”
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Boersenverein started with libreka their counter-initiative against Google Book, so of course they are critical.
As for the claim to “achieve control” I would like to hear the opinions of publishers and book-sellers(=members of Boersenverein) in Germany.
I think that they’re not innocent themselves, since the libreka search system is going to be financed with membership fees.
I can’t imagine that the bookstore next corner is happy about how Boersenverein took control of their membership fee to put it into libreka.
Martin from Berlin,
Thanks for posting.
Stephen Arnold, November 4, 2008