Under the judgment handed down on September 5, the Brussels court ruled that Google must pay a one-million-euro (1.3-million-dollar) fine daily if it does not comply.
A Brussels Court has ruled that Google must remove all articles from Belgian publishing group Copiepress from its Google News service because it is in breach of author’s rights and Belgian databank regulations. If Google fails to abide by the court ruling, it faces a fine of €1m per day.
The Belgian Association of Newspaper Editors, which handles copyright matters for the French- and German-speaking press in the country, lodged the complaint over Google News, a search service in which headlines, excerpts of stories and small versions of photographs are reproduced to refer visitors to full articles on newspaper sites.
The Internet group was liable to pay another half a million euros per day if it failed to publish the ruling on its Belgian website "google.be" continuously for five days with 10 days of being notified of the court’s ruling.
The case was brought by Copiepresse, which represents French and German language papers in Belgium including Le Soir and Libre Belgique.
“The way in which Google News presently operates causes the publishers of the daily press to lose control of their websites and their contents,” the court said in its ruling.
Google recently launched its Belgian version of Google News, which scans some 400 Belgian news sites. However, the Belgian newspaper editors were extremely unhappy with the service and demanded some form of agreement or at least financial compensation.
Google disagreed, and argued that it does not republish entire articles and that their service is within “fair use” policies. It also allows publishers to opt out of Google News. Most publishers, however, want to be included in Google News because they believe it is a benefit to them and their readers, Google says.
The recent lawsuit was filed only by the publishers of the newspapers Le Soir, La Libre Belgique and La dernière herure. The Dutch-language newspapers in Belgium represented by Reprocopy press have not filed a lawsuit yet.
The association said the Belgian Court of First Instance has threatened daily fines of $1.27 million in its ruling earlier this month. Margaret Boribon, secretary general of the association, said individual newspapers will have to decide on fees for their articles separately, so it is not clear how much Google would owe Belgian newspapers for a day’s content.
A report from an expert witness, submitted in court, said that “the use of Google News circumvents the advertising of the publishers who get a considerable amount of their revenue from these advertisements.”
It said that "Google News short-circuits many other elements" like references to copyright protection or the authorization of the use of data.
There are currently at least two other lawsuits against Google over its news service: one in the US (District Court of Columbia) and one in France (Paris Commercial Court). Last year, Agence France Presse (AFP) sued Google over inclusion of its content in Google News. Among other things, AFP said Google removed photo credits and copyright notices in violation of federal law. Google then decided to remove all AFP content.
In the Belgian case, Google spokeswoman Rachel Whetstone said the news service is "entirely consistent" with copyright law and benefits news organizations by referring traffic to their sites.
She added that the Belgian newspapers did not need to take the case to court because Google lets any news organization decline to participate upon request. Google has removed the Belgian newspapers from its Belgium index and is in the process of removing them from its global index, she said.
The Google News service, which debuted in 2002, scans thousands of news outlets and highlights the top stories under common categories such as world and sports. Many stories carry a small image, or thumbnail, along with the headline and the first sentence or two. Visitors can click on the headline to read the full story at the source website.
But the French news agency AFP sued Google for at least $17.5 million in damages, arguing that the Google service adds little value because its news site looks much like those of AFP subscribers, albeit one where software and not human editors determine the placement of stories on a page.
Copiepresse’s Boribon said that Google, which was not present at the court, had “designated a lawyer, who wants to reach an agreement between the parties.”
In a statement, Google said it "only found out about this lawsuit and the court’s decision … almost two weeks after the actual hearing. As a result we were not able to make our case directly to the judge.
"We are disappointed by the decision, which we believe is flawed and which we intend to appeal," it said, adding that it had removed the contentious material from the company’s Belgian news site.
Separately, Google has agreed to pay The Associated Press for stories and photographs. Neither Mountain View-based Google nor New York-based AP has disclosed financial terms or other details because of a non-disclosure agreement.
Google has indicated AP’s content will serve as the foundation for a new product that will be introduced in the coming months as a complement to its popular Google News service.
Legal scholars say Google could argue that the service adds value by significantly improving the news-consuming experience