Internet search giant Google has hit a roadblock in France that could halt its book-scanning project. Google Books wants to scan more than 50 million books into digital versions.
Google partnered with libraries around the world to include their collections in its Book Search. The company’s search results will act like a card catalog, offering snippets of text from books that remain in copyright. Searchers can read and download entire books from the Google Books Library Project that are out of copyright.
A French court on Friday convicted Google of copyright infringement and ordered the company to pay $430,000 to French publisher La Martiniere Group. The publisher, the owner of U.S. publishing house Abrams, filed a complaint against Google in June 2006.
Google was not only ordered to pay the hefty fine, but also to pull all the scanned works off of its web site. For each day that excerpts of the books remain on the web site, Google must pay an additional $14,300.
La Martiniere Group is backed by France’s Syndicat National de l’Edition.
Google plans to appeal the ruling and is expected to base its argument on the fact that it has permission from U.S. libraries to scan and post excerpts the books without permission from authors. Google also plans to argue that its indexing and displaying of books does not break French copyright law.
“We disagree with the judge’s decision and will appeal the judgment,” said Gabriel Stricker, a Google spokesperson. “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.”
“French readers now face the threat of losing access to a significant body of knowledge and falling behind the rest of Internet users,” Stricker added. “If readers are able to search…