Google Play Books now available in France
updated 08:06 pm EDT, Wed July 18, 2012
Deal follows resolution of publisher litigation
French customers of Google's Play Store will now be able to purchase books through the entertainment hub. The news was announced in a post on Google's European Public Policy Blog. French access to Google's book store comes following the resolution of a six-year legal saga involving suits from both French author and publisher guilds.
Google recently reached an agreement with the French Publishers Association and the Société des Gens de Lettres, an authors group, in which those groups dropped copyright lawsuits against Google. The company set up a framework agreement whereby French publishers will provide digital versions of their books for Google to sell. The agreement made France the only company where Google has an industry-wide book-scanning agreement covering out-of-print works that are still under copyright.
The new deal makes France the fifth European country to have books on Google Play, along with Germany, Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom.
