According to BBC News:
A Paris court has found Google guilty of copyright infringement in a ruling which could have ramifications for its plans to digitise the world’s books.
The French publisher La Martiniere, one of several to take Google to court for digitising books without permission, won their case in French courts and Google has been ordered to pay 300,000 euros (£266,000) in damages and interest
In addition, Google is expected to pay a daily fine of 10,000 euros until it all extracts of the books are purged from its database.
A Google spokesperson said Google is disappointed:
“French readers now face the threat of losing access to a significant body of knowledge and falling behind the rest of internet users.”
Serge Eyrolles, head of the French publisher’s union Syndicat National de l’Edition, indicated that he and the union were “completely satisfied with the verdict”, adding that “It shows Google that they are not the kings of the world and they can’t do whatever they want.”
The Herve de La Martiniere court case was actually launched three years ago, and initially demanded that Google be fined 15m euros (£13.2m), claiming that the scanning books was an act of reproduction and thus subject to payment obligations.
La Martiniere, the French Publishers’ Association and authors’ group SGDL strenuously objected to Google’s actions, but Google continued to scan books in the interim.
Tags: books, France, Google, publishers