The German Chancellor Angela Merkel criticized Google plan to build a digital library on the Internet. Merkel appealed to receive more international cooperation on copyright protection and said that the German government opposed Google's objective of scanning libraries full of books and that the Internet should not be exempt from copyright law.

"The German government has a clear position: copyrights have to be protected in the Internet," Merkel said, also warning that there are "considerable dangers" for copyright protection in the Internet.

"That's why we reject the scanning in of books without any copyright protection -- like Google is doing. The government places a lot of weight on this position on copyrights to protect writers in Germany."

Google has already digitized 10 million books and has received a lot of praise for helping users access books online. However, Google has been attacked on antitrust, copyright and privacy grounds.

Google already is working on a settlement in court for a 2005 lawsuit brought by the Authors Guild and others. Google would pay $125 million to create a Book Rights Registry. Authors and publishers could register works there and be paid for books and other publications that the Google would post online.

French publishers La Martiniere, the French Publishers' Association and authors' group SGDL asked a French court to fine Google $22 million and 100,000 euros for each day it continued to violate copyright as a result of the digitization of their books.

Google's Sergey Brin spoke out on behalf of Google Books and defended Google's position, pointing out that Books published before 1923 are in the public domain and thus exempt from copyright restrictions.
Brin also mentioned that that books written after 1923 “quickly disappear into a literary black hole,” only available to readers during the time they are being printed. After that, most books are found only in libraries or thrift shops.

What were Google's motivesto store orphan books without receiving permission upfront? Even though, these works are no longer in print they still protected by copyright. Copyright experts say that the orphan provision that allows Google to store books without upfront protection places competitors in a disadvantaged position. Brin disagrees and contends that a successful Google Books business will spur similar services, which will only increase consumer demand and variety. He assures that Google is a company that “obsesses over the quality of our products” and has as much desire to improve bibliographic information and classification as anyone.

Brin’s overall argument is that steps need to be taken to prevent books to be lost or be left in oblivion. Are Google's goals humanitarian or are they commercial? While it is difficult to downplay the argument of the preservation of book works and digital access to them, it is necessary to compensate the copyright holders of the works and create a system so the rights holders can easily opt-in and reap the benefits based on a performance measure that can be measured by Google.