French publisher sues Google for e-book piracy

[Alexander Turcic]

The French publishing group La Martiniere is suing Google for "counterfeiting and breach of intellectual property rights" over its Google Book Search scanning and digitization project, according to BBC News.

The national publishers' union of France, Le Syndicat national de l'Edition, has repeatedly condemned the library project and threatened legal action. There have been concerns in France that the project will enhance the dominance of the English language. Last year, France and several other European countries received European Union backing for a rival book-scanning project for publications which are not in English.

The publisher is now demanding USD$128,000 for each of the about 100 books involved and for each day's delay. Not sure if sending out crooked lawyers will do anything to solve the deep psychological problem of some of the French with the already very real domination of the English language.

[via Unofficial Google Weblog]