A Bump in the Google Books Road

When you set out to digitize the world's books there are bound to be a few problems. First and foremost is that those books are under copyright. While we all benefit from Google Books, it's easy to understand the concerns of authors and publishers who want to protect the ownership of their work.

French publisher La Martiniere recently fought to protect those rights and won. BBC News is reporting that a Paris court has found Google guilty of copyright infringement and has ordered the online giant to pay 300,000 euros in damages and interest. Specifically, Google has been ordered to pay 10,000 euros a day until it removes the publishers books from it's database.

Last week I saw a television report on Google that said it has easily surpassed Microsoft in profits. It sounds like they are in a position to compensate those who's books they want to scan.