French Publisher Sues Google Over Book Piracy

The controversial Google Book Search program is in more trouble -- the French publisher group La Martiniere, which owns publishing houses in France, Switzerland, and the US is suing Google for piracy. I'm hoping La Martiniere will win. The Agence France-Presse news agency reports that the suit will charge Google with "counterfeiting and breach of intellectual property rights" because Google will be scanning copyrighted books without the copyright holders' permissions, and making them searchable and available on the Web.

This adds to the growing number of suits launched against the service. The Author's Guild and the Association of American Publishers are both suing Google, and France's National Publishers' Union (SNE), made up of 400 publishers, is considering suing as well. In addition, publishers in the United Kingdom have trumpeted their displeasure.

It's time for Google to end this project. It's riding roughshod over the rights of authors and publishers, and the company is flat-out wrong. It's fine to scan and make available books online if the copyright holders agree. But the company should first ask permission before doing it.