A French court found Google Inc. guilty of copyright infringement for scanning books and publishing extracts online without a French publisher’s consent, a ruling that could hinder the U.S search company&後;s ongoing drive to create a giant global online library.

In a Friday ruling that Google said it would appeal, the court ordered the U.S. company to pay €300,000 ($501,000) to French publisher La Martinière and to remove online extracts of the publisher’s books.

這項裁決, which is the first of its kind in France and applies only to this country, could set a legal precedent for any future copyright infringement cases by French publishers, said Valerie Barthez, head of the legal department at the French publishers’ association Société des Gens de Lettres de France, which was one of the plaintiffs in the case.

Google has been working for several years to make a vast array of books available online through its search engine. 自 2004 the search engine company has been working with libraries throughout the U.S. in order to digitize millions of books. Google has also signed 9000 partnerships with several European publishers that have agreed to have extracts from their books put online, a spokeswoman for Google said.

通過 巴黎法院裁定書案 – WSJ.com.