The legal settlement that would sanctify Google’s book digitization efforts may be on hold, but that hasn’t stopped the sniping over digitization in general, and Google’s specific role in vending e-books. The Frankfurt Book Fair, a major publishing event, is playing host to the latest skirmishes over what role Google and other organizations should play in controlling access to digitized material. Google continues to insist that it’s doing the world a favor by preserving knowledge and bringing lost books back to the public, but at least some European academics are blasting the company’s statements as propaganda. In the meantime, however, the EU itself has used the Fair to announce an effort to update its copyright laws and launch its own pan-European digital library.

The Google book settlement was not well received within the EU, in part because of the same sorts of competition concerns that caused the US Department of Justice to weigh in against it. But Europeans had some distinct concerns, as Google has scanned copies of European works that reside in US Libraries, even though these were never licensed for US distribution. This unlicensed content was especially problematic given the settlement’s structure, which would allow Google to distribute the works unless their owners explicitly opted out.