Major publishers accused Google Thursday of "brutally" exploiting France's literary heritage as they launched a court challenge to the Internet giant's drive to scan digital copies of books and put extracts online.

Publishing house La Martiniere, the French Publishers' Association and authors' group SGDL asked a Paris court to fine Google 15 million euros ($22.09 million) and 100,000 euros for each day it continues to violate copyright by digitizing their books.

The trial caps a three-year challenge to what publishers say is the web giant's 2005 plan to create a massive online library without prior approval.

"It's an anarchic way of brutally stockpiling French heritage," Yann Colin, the publishers' lawyer, told the court.

"Digitizing is reproduction," he added. "Once it is digitized, you can't undo it."

Colin argued that the case, which targets Google's French unit, should be tried under local law as the publishers, scanned works and authors were French.

The publishers also argue that Google's massive profits are "parasitic," as they were generated from sponsored links which are presented to web surfers searching for copyrighted books.

A federal appeals court on Thursday tossed out a $5 million verdict against protesters who carried signs with inflammatory messages like "Thank God for dead soldiers" outside the Maryland funeral of a U.S. Marine killed in Iraq.

A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the signs contained "imaginative and hyperbolic rhetoric" protected by the First Amendment. Such messages are intended to spark debate and cannot be reasonably read as factual assertions about an individual, the court said.

A jury in Baltimore had awarded Albert Snyder damages for emotional distress and invasion of privacy. The 2006 funeral of Snyder's son, Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder in Westminster, Md., was among many military funerals that have been picketed by members of the fundamentalist Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas.

Albert Snyder's attorney, Sean E. Summers, said he and his client were disappointed.

Property rights advocates who fought to keep the city of New London from taking homes by eminent domain say the city's failure to develop the land is poetic justice. But city officials say the land's fate was victim of the bad economy.

Susette Kelo and six other homeowners fought for years to keep New London from taking their homes. The city won the right to buy the land in a 5-4 Supreme Court decision in 2005.

Officials hoped for more than 3,000 new jobs in the development. But today, there's only a state park and a handful of new jobs.

Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert on Friday made his first court appearance on charges of graft, vowing he would prove his innocence.

As the first Israeli premier to face criminal charges in court, Olmert acknowledged at the arraignment hearing in Jerusalem that he understood the charges against him. He is not scheduled to enter a plea until later this year.

Olmert resigned under pressure last September but has insisted on his innocence and told journalists on Friday he was confident the trial would vindicate him.

"I am innocent, and I am certain the court will clear me of any suspicions," he said. "It is not an easy day for me; for the past three years I have been the target of an almost inhuman defamation campaign."

The court decided it will start hearing testimony on February 22 and will hold three sessions a week.

Olmert, who turns 64 on Wednesday, was charged in August with three counts of graft.

The Securities and Exchange Commission leveled insider trading charges against a Perot Systems investment firm employee for taking home $8.6 million in allegedly illicit profits just days after Dell's $3.9 billion acquisition of the services company.

Reza Saleh, who works for Perot Systems (PER) investment firm Parkcentral Capital Management, bought a number of large call options contracts on Perot Systems beginning two weeks prior to the deal. Call options give the buyer the right to purchase a stock at a specific price and a specific future date.

Saleh sold all of his call options off immediately following Dell's (DELL, Fortune 500) announcement on Monday. The SEC said the options grew larger and larger as the announcement of the deal grew closer.

The SEC identified Saleh as a suspicious trader shortly after he sold off all of the options. Furthermore, Saleh admitted to the SEC that he was aware of the impending deal when he bought the options, according to SEC documents.

"The overwhelming evidence in this case allowed the SEC to move quickly against the trader before he could spend the huge profits from his illegal trading," said Rose Romero, director of the SEC's Fort Worth Regional Office, in a statement.

The SEC is seeking an emergency freeze of Saleh's assets.

The CEO of National Lampoon Inc. has pleaded guilty to conspiracy.

Federal prosecutors in Philadelphia say CEO Daniel Laikin was part of a plot to artificially inflate the company's stock price by paying people to buy shares. The 47-year-old man, who lives in Indianapolis and Los Angeles, pleaded guilty to conspiracy Wednesday. Prosecutors dropped a count of securities fraud in exchange.

Prosecutors say Laikin and others hoped to push the price of the shares from $2 to $5 to boost its attractiveness in a strategic partnership or acquisition. The shares were trading on the American Stock Exchange at the time but prosecutors say they've since become an over-the-counter penny stock.

Defense lawyer Joseph Poluka did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Taiwan's High Court decided Thursday that former President Chen Shui-bian should remain in detention because he could flee if released pending his appeal of his conviction on corruption charges.

Chen has been detained in a Taipei jail since late 2008, and was sentenced to life in prison by the Taipei District Court earlier this month after being found guilty of embezzling $3.15 million during his 2000-2008 presidency from a special presidential fund, receiving bribes worth at least $9 million, and laundering some of the money through Swiss bank accounts.

Earlier this week, he was indicted on new charges that he pocketed US$330,000 from foreign affairs funds for personal use.

The High Court decided to keep Chen in detention for a further three months after a hearing Thursday, spokesman Wen Yao-yuan said.

After reviewing the case documents, "the court reckoned that he is still hiding huge amount of assets overseas ... and he is likely to flee (Taiwan) if free," Wen said. "So the court has decided to continue his detention."

Chen is appealing his sentence, but no trial date has been set by the high court.

Chen has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and has charged that he is being prosecuted for his anti-China views by the administration of current President Ma Ying-jeou. Ma, who has been eager to improve ties with Beijing, has denied the accusation.