French Google Book Search Suit Grows

A second publisher group in France has joined a lawsuit against search giant Google in French court over its Google Book Search service. The suit is similar to one brought forth by the US-based Author's Guild and was filed October 24. In the statement, Le Syndicat National de l'Edition (SNE) says it joined Le Martiniire Groupe in its suit against the company because it believes that Google is ignoring intellectual property laws by copying the content of the books.

The original suit was filed in June, of which SNE supported. Both companies object to Google's decision to use an opt-out method when including books in the search. To its defense, Google has maintained that scanning the books is fair use, because only a portion of the text is included within search results.