Google has told the European Union that a proposed deal to settle the row over its book search system will aid democracy. The firm is trying to smooth over hostilities on the continent with the governments of both France and Germany lining up against the deal.

The European Commission, the administrative wing of the EU, is today holding a hearing on the proposed settlement between Google and U.S. authors and publishers. The commission is particularly concerned with a proposal to give Google control over orphan books, those which are in copyright but where the rights holders can’t be traced. It claims 90 percent of books in European libraries fall into this category.

Google told the commission that its interest is “in helping people to find the books” and that Google Book Search has seen “a democratization of access to online information.”

There’s plenty of opposition to the deal on the continent. An international group representing libraries said the sheer scale of the project and the amount of work Google has already done makes it difficult for any other organization to compete.

The German government says it’s concerned the deal would violate copyright laws in the country. It also said it feared books in print in Germany but not the US might be classed as out of print by Google, though the firm says this isn’t the case.

And France says it plans to file an objection to the U.S. court which is considering whether to approve the deal. It shares Germany’s concerns and adds that Google would have too much power in deciding which books would be covered by its database.

Google has attempted to win over European governments by offering two of the eight seats on the board overseeing the database’s operations to members from outside the United States.

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Entry was posted on Monday, September 7th, 2009 at 1:59 pm under Auto, Hacking, Legal.

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