Google Books takes another legal body blow

by Stevie Smith - Dec 22 2009, 07:38

A copyright infringement lawsuit slapped against Google Inc. has led to the Internet search giant taking a sizable monetary hit in terms of damages, and may also see the company forced to rethink its bold ambition to digitise the world’s traditionally published books.

More pointedly, a court in Paris has ordered California-based Google to pay 300,000 Euros (approximately $430,000 USD) in damages to French group La Martiniere, which owns the Edition du Seuil publishing house, after Google was deemed guilty of digitising its books without permission.  

Although the ruling is a far cry from the 15 million Euros (approx. $22.5 million USD) initially sought by La Martiniere, the French Publishers’ Association and authors’ group SGDL, Google also faces a daily fine of 10,000 Euros for every day it leaves extracts from La Martiniere’s books online.

 “[This decision] shows Google that they are not the kings of the world and they can’t do whatever they want,” commented Serge Eyrolles, head of the French publisher’s union Syndicat National de l’Edition, in a BBC report.

According to the plaintiffs, Google was raking in advertising revenue connected to the online extracts without properly compensating the creators and original publishers directly responsible for the used content.

Confirming that it will appeal the court’s ruling, Google has voiced its disappointed and said it believes providing online access to brief extracts of digitised works falls within the boundaries of copyright.

“French online users will be the only ones deprived of a great part of their literary heritage,” said Google lawyer Benjamin du Chauffaut following the verdict. He also went on to say that the 10 million international books already digitised by Google play an important contributory role in marketing.

The latest ruling against Google follows on from a settlement reached with the U.S. Authors’ Guild, which had been engaged in a similar copyright and compensation tussle with the Internet titan.

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