France will not rely on Google for digitisation of cultural goods

Nicolas Sarkozy has reserved a budget of 750 million Euros to finance creating digital copies of France’s cultural heritage. With this action, France emphasises that it will not leave this task up to the private sector.

“We won’t let ourselves be stripped of our heritage to the benefit of a big company, no matter how friendly, big or American it is,” Sarkozy said last week, likely referencing to Google.

With Sarkozy’s budget, a public-private partnership will be established that will carry out the task of digitising the works. Google may well be involved in this partnership. Private sector involvement will be needed to increase the available capital. Digitising the collection of the French National Library alone, with over 14 million books and several million other documents is estimated to cost more that a billion Euros in itself.

Google’s plans for digitising the world’s cultural heritage are currently under scrutiny of the court of New York. France has submitted a reaction to that court stating that Google Books does not conform to “intellectual property law or to competition law and constitutes a threat to cultural diversity.”

17-12-2009