100.000 Euros for Each Google Digitized Book

It well seems that Europeans are fond of their intellectual property in a proportion that is beyond US companies' comprehension.

This time around, the lawsuit filled against Google has French accent. Google Books (initially Google Print), launched after the Frankfurt Book Fair last fall, is under fire coming from French Publisher La Martiniere.

Google Books is an online search service that Google made available and that is to transform in digital format all published books. The problems Google faced even from the get go revolved around possible copyright infringements.

La Martiniere, with publishing houses in France, Switzerland and the US sued Google based on its Google Books project. The lawsuit accuses Google of counterfeiting and breach of intellectual property for more than 100 digitized books introduced into Google Book Search. La Martiniere is demanding 100,000 euros for each scanned book.

"We disagree with their case, which we will contest in court. Google Book Search helps users find and buy books - not read or download them for free. It is directly beneficial to authors and their publishers because it enables them to reach a wider global audience, while protecting their copyrights. If publishers do not wish their books to be part of our project all they have to do is tell us and we exclude them and exclude their works. There is no need for any court case," said a Google spokesperson.