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Google Livres loses court appeal

01.01.70 | Katie Allen

Google has lost its appeal not to publish last December's court ruling for two weeks on the Google Livres website.

The 18th December verdict ordered Google to pay €300,000 in damages to the La Martinière group for digitising copyrighted books without permission and €10,000 for each day that contested titles
remained in its database.

The Paris appeal court also ordered the search engine to pay another €2,000 in damages to Groupe La Martinière, and to the French Publishers Association (Syndicat National de l'Edition, SNE) and the French Writers Union (Société des Gens de Lettres, SGDL), which backed the publisher in the case.

In a statement, Google insisted that it complied with French copyright laws and said it might file a final appeal on the publication order with the French court of cassation, or last resort.

In January, Google said it would pay the €300,000, but would not pay the daily fine of €10,000 because it would remove the 120 contested titles listed in an annex to the court ruling.

Its appeal against the full December ruling is not expected to be heard for at least a year.

• Barbara Casassus
• France
• Google