Google News must delete links to Belgian newspapers

Google has been at war with French- and German-language newspapers in Belgium for quite a while about references to -and quotations from- these newspapers on the news service Google News.

On Google News, Google automatically brings together news from various online media. The site shows only the titles and introductions of new stories and refers to the original website for further reading.

The complaints of Belgian newspapers are remarkable, because many media are of the opposite opinion, working hard to ensure that their articles are the top news stories on Google News, because that attracts more visitors to their site.  Nonetheless, the Walloon newspapers sued Google in 2006, anticipating that the court would summon Google to pay them for using their news.

Google was indeed convicted in absentia for violating the copyrights of the newspapers. The court held that Google quotes from and links to the papers without their consent. Google News had to remove all reference to the plaintiffs newspapers, or pay a substantial penalty.

Google responded adamantly: it not only took the referrals from Google News, but the simultaneously deleted all reference to the newspapers from its search engine. This makes the newspapers almost invisible on the Internet and will cost them lots of visitors.

Copiepresse, the copyright society that represents the francophone Belgian newspapers, filed new lawsuits and also began negotiations with Google over payments for the use of their work in Google News. They did not come to an agreement. Meanwhile, Google has always maintained that it only refers to the newspaper sites and that doing so does not infringe copyright. The U.S. media group appealed the case, but lost. Last Thursday, The Court of Appeal in Brussels confirmed previous decisions, including the penalty.

Although legal opportunities for redress in this case are now exhausted in Belgium, Google is not at all shaken. "We believe referring to information with short titles and direct links to the source is not only legal but also encourages Internet users to read those papers online," said Google spokeswoman Anoek Eckhardt. "Google News is fully consistent with applicable copyright laws.”

I wonder who actually benefits from this case in the long run. Officially, the Walloons were right, but their online newspapers are now missing hundreds of visitors. Google in turn runs the risk of similar claims from other media. Lastly, this case seems to have limited the quotation exemption in the digital domain in Belgium.

Source: De Standaard