You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Google has won a minor round in its book digitisation battle against publisher La Martinière, the French publishers association (Syndicat National de l’Edition, SNE) and the French authors society (Société des Gens de Lettres, SDGL).
A court has upheld Google's demand that it should not be required to post on its homepage an earlier ruling that condemned it for digitising La Martinière books without prior permission.
Last December’s ruling ordered Google Books to publish the verdict in three publications and on its site. The US concern provided a link, but the SNE and SGDL insisted that it should publish the text in full. The two organisations have been ordered to pay costs of €1,500.
The appeal on the substance of the case is still ahead, and no date has yet been fixed, the French trade weekly Livres Hebdo reported.
In December, a court ordered Google to pay La Martinère €300,000 in damages for digitising 300 of its books, whereas at the time the publisher’s lawyer Yann Colin estimated that the American group had digitised as many as 100,000 French titles.