 Sunday, 05 September 2010 |
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> French Tribunal condemns Google for breach of copyright
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French Tribunal condemns Google for breach of copyright
On 18 December, the High Level Court of Paris ruled that Google will not be allowed to continue its digitization of French books without previous authorization.
The publishing company La Martinière found that Google had digitized, without asking for authorization, hundreds of their books, putting their full cover with an abstract on the Internet. La Martinière decided to file a complaint.
The Court had to decide between two positions: La Martinière’s lawyer who said that such a practice is illegal, dangerous and harmful for publishers; and Google’s lawyer who argued for the right of online readers to information, and said that putting a book cover and short abstract online should be considered as a “citation” for which a service provider is not obliged to pay for authors’ rights.
Google has been ordered to pay damages of € 300,000 to La Martinière and to stop all digitizing of their books. Google has been given a month to implement the ruling and must pay for the ruling’s publication in three newspapers or magazines.
The ruling has been received with enthusiasm by French publishers, where Serge Eyrolles, President of the National Syndicate of French Publishers said “this is a great victory for authors’ rights”.
Google said they would appeal against the judgment.
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