A French court ruled that Google infringed copyrights by publishing extracts online for its Google Book Search service without proper authorization.

The Paris court handed the court victory to La Martinière, who argued that the publications industry was suffering because of, as well as being exploited by, Google’s Book Search service. La Martinière is backed up by a number of other publishers and authors.

Google, however, argues that it believes that it is operating well inside French law, and is planning to file for an appeal.

“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,” according to Philippe Colombet, the go-to-person for Google’s book partnership in France.

La Martinière filed a suit against Google back in 2006, arguing that by reproducing partial book contents of its publishers online, Google should be paying royalties, or some equivalent whatsoever. La Martinière said that Google was allowing users to scan copyrighted material without paying for it, and that Google was benefitting from it through advertisement traffic, while publishers are left in the dumps.

Google was ordered by the French court to pay an equivalent of 300,000 euros in fines, and to stop the further online reproduction of copyrighted materials. In addition, Google will be fined 10,000 euros per day until it successfully removes extracts of certain French publications from its online database.

Want to earn some spare money as a writer for us? Send us an email!