A Belgian court has ruled that Web search leader Google Inc. may not reproduce extracts of Belgian press reports, upholding an existing injunction, news agencies reported on Tuesday.
A Brussels court ruled in favour of Copiepresse, a copyright protection group representing 19 – mostly French-language –newspapers that complained the search engine's "cached" links offered free access to archived articles that the papers usually sell on a subscription basis, an Associated Press (AP) report said.
Google, the owner of the world's most-used search engine, must pay 25,000 euros ($32,500) a day until it removes all Belgian news content, the Brussels Court of First Instance ruled, according to a Bloomberg News report. There's “no exception” for Google in copyright law, the court said in the judgment. Google spokeswoman Jessica Powell said the company would study the ruling before commenting.
The court ruled against the California-based company in September 2006 when it failed to appear at an earlier hearing. That judgment forced Google to remove newspaper content from its news index, under threat of daily fines of euro1 million (US$1.28 million) until it complied with the ruling. The court later agreed to hear the case again to allow Google put its side forward.
Google's lawyers accused the newspapers of protectionism, insisting that the company had not broken copyright law by showing headlines, a few lines of text and a link to the original story. But counsel for Copiepresse claimed that Google hurt the rights of authors because it effectively gave away content they usually charge for.
Most Belgian newspapers offer new articles to readers for free but charge for access to older stories.
"Copiepresse has won," said lawyers for the group. The court was unable to confirm the information, according to Reuters. Copiepress has also demanded that the French division of Internet portal Yahoo stop reproducing snippets of Belgian press reports.
“Google will have to reach a deal to make it worthwhile for newspapers to cooperate,” David Hooper, a newspaper lawyer and partner at Reynolds Porter Chamberlain in London, told Bloomberg over the phone. “There is a tendency for Google to use things for free and reach a deal later.”
Belgium's Flemish newspaper society didn't join the lawsuit, asking Google instead to remove the content of all its nine dailies, such as De Standaard, from its news service. “We tried to come to a solution in a more efficient way,” the society's head Alex Fordyn said on October 16, 2006. Still, the ruling may help his group's negotiations with Google.
In a surprise twist, on the day of the November court hearing, two of the five groups that had joined the Copiepresse lawsuit reached a settlement with Google. The company confirmed it had agreed a deal with copyright agencies Sofam, which represents 3,700 photographers, and Scam, which represents journalists, declining to elaborate on the terms.
