Kinko’s to Follow Ruling on Copyrights : Courts: A federal judge ruled that the chain’s sales of photocopied excerpts infringed on publishers’ protections. The graphics firm may appeal.

Kinko’s Graphics Corp., the Ventura-based owner of about 90 copying stores nationwide, said Monday that it would comply with a federal judge’s ruling restricting the stores’ ability to photocopy and sell packaged excerpts of books to college students. But the copying store chain added that it is considering an appeal of the decision.

Kinko’s Graphics, which had been sued by eight textbook manufacturers in April, 1989, said it would comply immediately with the decision, under which it must pay a $510,000 fine and also stop selling the “anthologies” without getting permission from publishers and paying fees to them.

U. S. District Judge Constance Baker Motley in Manhattan ruled Thursday that the practice infringed on the publishers’ copyrights.

“We currently are reviewing the court decision and considering various options at this time,” Kurt Koenig, Kinko’s Graphics vice president of copyright and trademark counsel, said in a statement issued Monday.

Kinko’s Graphics “is considering an appeal as well as other options,” spokeswoman Jeanne Ouellette said.

There are about 540 Kinko’s copying stores nationwide, owned by a network of more than 100 partnerships, each operating one or more of the stores.

Kinko’s Graphics is one of the larger partnerships and owns copying stores in the district where the New York publishing companies filed suit.

Motley said in her decision that Kinko’s Graphics stores sold packets of book excerpts that were meant to help university students meet reading requirements of specific classes.

Kinko’s Graphics had argued in court that the practice was allowed under the fair-use clause of federal copyright laws.

That clause allows faculty members to make copies of copyrighted materials for classroom use, Kinko’s Graphics maintained in its release.

But Motley said in her decision that the result of Kinko’s Graphics selling the packets to students “is complete frustration of the intent of the copyright law, which has been the protection of intellectual property and, more importantly, the encouragement of creative expression.”

The plaintiffs in the suit were Basic Books Inc., Harper & Row Publishers Inc., John Wiley & Sons Inc., McGraw-Hill Inc., Penguin Books USA Inc., Prentice-Hall Inc., Richard D. Irwin Inc. and William Morrow & Co. Inc.