DAVID GREENE, HOST:
And we have more on another debate involving books and technology. It focuses on the question of whether the question rare and out-of-print literary works should be digitized. In 2006, publishers and authors in France sued Google for copyright violation after the Internet company digitized a number of French books.
Yesterday, the authors and publishers agreed to drop the suit. The two sides reached an agreement over which digital versions of the French works can be offered for sale on Google's website. Some believe the resolution now clears the way to bring thousands of out-of-print French books back to life.
Now, as many of you know, e-books sales have been growing quickly in the United States, but they've not taken off in France and much of Europe, largely because of rights issues like the one we're talking about. Overall, Google has digitized some 20 million books from around the world. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.