Google loses copyright battle, pulls Belgian content

A Belgian court on Wednesday adjudged that Internet search giant Google has infringed Belgian copyright law by publishing news snippets and links of Belgian newspapers without permission.

The court in Brussels ruled that Google may not reproduce extracts from various Belgian newspapers and ordered to remove the Belgian newspaper content, photos and links from the Google site, putting one of the web search leader's most popular services into danger.

The court also ordered the world's most-used search engine and advertising company to pay a retroactive fine of $32500 a day until it removes all Belgian news content from its site.

However, the Mountain View, California-based Google said it has already removed the content and will appeal the ruling. It also asserted its Google News Service was "entirely legal."

A consortium made up of 18 French- and German-language newspapers last year accused Google of using their news content to generate "colossal traffic" and advertising profits.

Copiepresse, a group representing copyright holders in Belgium, started legal proceedings against Google last March on behalf of the consortium and sued Google for copyright infringement. It had argued that Google News, which runs short extracts of stories from around the world, infringed authors' rights.

Launched in Belgium in January 2006, Google News was flashing headlines, photos and the first few lines of Belgian newspaper stories, with links to the full articles on the newspapers' Web sites.

Copiepresse contends that versions of news articles stored on Google can be seen on its service even after the articles are no longer freely accessible on a newspaper's website.

In 2005, Google has faced a similar complaint in the United States from Agence France Presse. In its suit, the French news agency accused Google of linking to its content for free.

Furthermore, Google's YouTube, a video-sharing site, earlier this month agreed to remove more than 100,000 clips produced by New York- based Viacom Inc. after they were published without permission.

The Belgian court today upheld an existing proceeding, although it slashed the penalty that Google would face if it chose to publish material from a variety of Belgian French and German-language newspapers.

Copiepresse has also threatened legal action against those search engines that offer similar services, its secretary-general Margaret Boribon said. The group said it has plans to sue Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo! Inc. if they continue to use their content. “I wouldn't be surprised to see a series of actions after today,” said Boribon.

After hearing yesterday’s ruling, publishers and editors in other European countries including Austria and Italy are now planning to file similar lawsuits.