French Antique books to be digitized by Google

Google began digitizing half a million books from the Municipal Library of Lyon, France, this week. Google is contracted to scan the books in the library within 10 years. The antique books include a 16th-century edition of predictions by Nostradamus and Isaac Newton's 17th-century scientific treatise "Principia."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said its government would spend 750 million euros (1.07 billion U.S. dollars) to digitally scan the content of its museums, libraries and cinematographic heritage via a public-private partnership.

The Lyon library -- whose books are municipal, not national properties -- made a call for offers for the digitization project in 2006, and only Google offered "an excellent solution." Under the contract, the Lyon Library will use the digital images of its books for its own purposes but notably cedes to Google the right to exploit them commercially for 25 years. Google in return scans the books for free.

French publishers have accused Google of infringing their copyright by scanning books for publication in its online library Google Books.

A Paris court on Friday ruled that Google cannot digitize any more French books without the publisher's approval and ordered it to pay 300,000 euros (428,000 U.S. dollars) in damages to publishers whose books it has already scanned.