French Court Fines Google for Copyright Infringement

A French court Friday fined U.S. Internet giant Google for digitizing French books without publishers' approval.

The court ruled that Google violated French copyright laws, and fined the company $14,300 a day until it removes excerpts of French books from its online database. Google was also ordered to pay $430,000 in damages and interest to a French publisher.

Google says it will appeal the ruling.

The publisher's lawyers say Google has scanned about 10,000 of their works without permission. The French publisher's union says Google has scanned more than 100,000 French books into its database.

So far, Google has scanned 10 million books through partnerships with libraries.

Earlier this month, French President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged nearly $1.1 billion to fund a national project to digitize French works.

Some information for this report provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.