Court convicts Google of books copyright breach

Google was convicted of breaching copyright over online French books by a Paris court today.

A judge ruled Friday that the internet search giant must pay €338,000 in damages and interest to a French publisher with a further €11,200 per day until it removes the extracts from its database.

The company said it will appeal the decision.

Google’s plans to scan millions of books to make them available online has drawn criticism from publishers and libraries in both the United States and Europe.

The head of the French publisher’s union said he was “completely satisfied” with the verdict.

“It shows Google that they are not the kings of the world and they can’t do whatever they want,” said Serge Eyrolles, president of France’s Syndicat National de l’Edition.

He said Google had scanned 100,000 French books into its database – 80% of which were under copyright.

Mr Eyrolles said French publishers would still like to work with Google to digitise their books, “but only if they stop playing around with us and start respecting intellectual property rights.”

Google defended its publication of excerpts of copyright-protected material at a trial in September.

A lawyer for the plaintiffs said that using select excerpts without permission “is a bad representation of the works.”

US authors and publishers also sued Google. The parties have settled, but are renegotiating details after the US Justice Department concluded that the original deal probably violates antitrust law.