France - Google book case

Google told to stop digitising French books

Article published on the 2009-12-18 Latest update 2009-12-19 10:09 TU

Yann Colin, lawyer of La Martiniere group speaking to the media at the Paris tribunal on 18 December
(Photo: Reuters)

Google was told by a French court on Friday that it is not allowed to digitise French books without the publisher’s consent. Google was ordered to pay 300,000 euros in damages, bringing an end to a three-year court case.

The cpurt ruled that by digitising whole books or excerpts Google was guilty of “copyright violation”.

Logo for Google books service

Yann Colin, acting for several publishers, argued that Google’s digitisation activities were “illegal” and “dangerous”. Google had tried to argue that the Google Books service was not a library, but a search engine.

However, the judges, who were ruling on 300 French books which had been put on line, decided that Google could not argue that “creating a digital file from a book is not an act of reproduction” and therefore it must be done “with the approval of the author or the copyright holders”.

Three publishers owned by the La Martinière group will receive 300,000 euros in damages. While the National Publishing Union and the Society of Authors will be given a symbolic sum of one euro.

Google has one month to comply with the ruling, else face further fines.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Monday that the French government will spend 750 million euros to digitise French books.