A Paris court on Friday ruled that Google violated French copyright law in digitizing books, but it’s unlikely the decision will be the last word on the search engine’s controversial book-scanning project. A judge ordered Google to pay 300,000 euros, or roughly $430,000, in damages to French publisher La Martiniere, which pursued the case on behalf of a group of publishers, The Associated Press reported. In addition, Google was ordered to pay a fine of 10,000 euros, or $14,340, every day, until it removes literary extracts from the publishers’ books from its database.
Google on Friday said it planned to appeal the ruling. “We disagree with the judge’s decision and will appeal the judgement,” Google spokeswoman Gabriel Stricker, said in an e-mail sent to Information “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.”
