The European Commission has adopted a Communication on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy and according to Viviane Reding, the Commissioner in charge of information society and the media will “… seize this opportunity to take the lead and ensure that books digitization takes place on the basis of European copyright law … If we act swiftly, pro-competitive European solutions on books digitization may well be sooner operational than the solutions presently envisaged under the Google Books Settlement in the United States.”
The internal market Commissioner, Charlie McCreevy, agreed with Reding and called for a pan-European system of book registries. You can read more here. This is certainly setting up the mechanism for a conflict with the Google settlement that may have to be resolved through diplomatic means eventually.
