French court rules against Google in Books case

France and Google continue not to see eye to eye in the Google Books programme. A court in France convicted the search engine giant of paying 300.000 Euros in damages to publisher La Martinière for infringing copyright.

Perhaps even more tellingly: the court ordered Google to remove from its database extracts from other French books on the pains of 10.000 Euros a day.

"It shows Google that they are not the kings of the world and they can't do whatever they want," Serge Eyrolles, president of France's publishers’ association, the Syndicat National de l'Edition commented. However, Eyrolles said that French publishers remain positive about working together with Google to create online copies of their books, "but only if they stop playing around with us and start respecting intellectual property rights."

Philippe Colombet, who leads Google’s digitisation efforts in France, is disappointed by the court’s ruling. "French readers now face the threat of losing access to a significant body of knowledge and falling behind the rest of Internet users. We believe that displaying a limited number of short extracts from books complies with copyright legislation both in France and the U.S. – and improves access to books."

Google intends to appeal the ruling.