French Government Slaps Google with $14,300 Fine a Day over Copyright Infringement

December 20, 2009

Paris, France - A court has ruled on Friday that technology giant Google Inc. should pay $14,300 a day for infringing the country’s copyright law until the company pulls out the infringed copies of digital books online.

In a court ruling, Google was also slapped with €300,000 or $430,000 in damages to be awarded to French publishers, authors, and copyright holders.

The Syndicat National de l'Edition, an organization of French record industry, has applauded the court order, saying that this “will serve as a reminder for Google that it cannot do whatever it wants.”

Serge Eyrolles, the organization’s president, said that Google has scanned at least 100,000 French books, with 80 percent of these have copyrights.

However, Eyrolles said the French publishers would still like to work with the Internet company “only if it will respect their intellectual property rights.”

In response to the court decision, Google legal representative Alexandra Neri said the company would make an appeal over the ruling which only affects its operation in France.

Five years ago, the company started its ambitious project of making all books available online. However, the project encountered its first legal obstacle after US publishers and copyright holders charged Google with copyright infringement. The lawsuit was later settled but the book project was immediately stopped by federal regulators over fear that it might increase the prices of online books and thwart market competition.

To allay such concerns, the company is revising its settlement with US publishers and authors. Meanwhile, Google has already scanned more than 10 million books since 2004, including 2 million copies which are no longer covered by copyright and another 2 million books with the consent of publishers.