French Publisher Sues Google Books for $22 Million

French publisher La Martiniere has joined the French Publishers’ Association and a French authors’ group in a 15 million euros ($22.09 million) lawsuit against Google for scanning books into the Google Books database.

According to Reuters, the suit alleges that Google Books’ French arm has digitized thousands of texts and violated the publisher’s copyright. The company also hopes the court will fine Google 100,000 euros for every day that the scanned texts are still available. A French tribunal should rule on the case by mid-December.

The publisher’s lawyer Yann Colin had this statement: “It’s an anarchic way of brutally stockpiling French heritage … Digitizing is reproduction … Once it is digitized, you can’t undo it.” (Via Bookseller)

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