PARIS (AP) — A Paris court has convicted Google Inc. in a copyright infringement case over online publication of French books.
A judge ruled Friday that the U.S. Internet search giant must pay euro300,000 ($430,000) in damages and interest to French publisher La Martiniere-Le Seuil.
Google was also ordered to pay euro10,000 per day until it removes extracts of the French books from its online database.
The attorney for Google, Alexandra Neri, said Google plans to appeal the decision.
Google's plans to scan millions of books to make them available online has drawn criticism from publishers and libraries in both the United States and Europe.
The head of the French publisher's union said he was "completely satisfied" with the verdict.
"It shows Google that they are not the kings of the world and they can't do whatever they want," said Serge Eyrolles, president of France's Syndicat National de l'Edition. He said Google had scanned 100,000 French books into its database — 80 percent of which were under copyright.
Eyrolles said French publishers would still like to work with Google to digitize their books, "but only if they stop playing around with us and start respecting intellectual property rights."
Google defended its publication of excerpts of copyright-protected material at a trial in September.
A lawyer for the plaintiffs said that using select excerpts without permission "is a bad representation of the works."
U.S. authors and publishers also sued Mountain View, California-based Google. The parties have settled, but are renegotiating details after the U.S. Justice Department concluded that the original deal probably violates antitrust law.
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AP reporter Nicolas Vaux-Montagny contributed to this report.
