Google appears to have suffered a major defeat, as a Belgian court ruled Tuesday that the internet giant violated that country’s copyright law when it linked and published portions of articles from Belgian newspapers on its news site without prior authorization. At least initially, Google is unbowed and said it plans to appeal.
In the case brought by press consortium Copiepresse, Google has been ordered to remove the material and pay a fine of $32,500 a day, the WSJ reported. So far, the fine amounts to roughly $4.4 million and counting. The court cut a retroactive daily fine of $32,390 for each day Google did not comply—far lower than an earlier judgment that threatened $1.3 million a day, according toAP .
Since Google removed content and links to Copiepresse newspapers such as Le Soir and La Derniere Heure in September, it is unclear how much any total fine would be. The AP reported that Google would not comment on the fine, saying its lawyers were still examining the judgment, but did say it was disappointed with the ruling and would appeal. Google said its service actually does newspapers a favor by driving traffic to their sites. And, in some quarters of the Belgium press, some believe the decision will backfire and that newspapers could lose readers as print newspaper circulations continue to decline, the UK’s Telegraph reported. “We want more readers, not less readers. Belgian newspapers will not make the internet work by trying to stand against the tide of global change,” one journalist told the Telegraph.
In September, Copiepresse, an association of Belgian-, French- and German-language publishers based in Belgium, won a case against Google at the Belgian Court of First Instance. Copiepresse claimed that by displaying its members’ copyrighted articles on its news-search engine without payment and permission, Google had broken Belgian law. Google appealed the ruling to the same court, saying it wasn’t aware of the first court hearing and noted that it has an “opt-out” policy for publishers who don’t want their content on Google, making the Belgian court case unnecessary.
As a matter of practicality, Google said the logistics of contacting every publishing company to get permission and pay a fee before posting any articles, as Copiepresse has demanded, would make it impossible to publish news on a timely basis. In the future, it said it would be up to copyright owners to get in touch with Google by e-mail to complain if the site was posting content that belonged to them. Google would then have 24 hours to withdraw the content or face a fine of $1,295 per day, the AP noted.
Even before its victory against Google, Copiepresse put Yahoo and MSN on notice: don’t use our material without permission or face the financial consequences. MSN has been negotiating with Copiepresse, while Yahoo has already begun to remove the offending links from its site.
Related:
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—Google Settles Dispute With Two Belgian Media Groups; Denmark Delay
—After Google, Belgians Go After MSN
—Belgian Newspapers Win, But Actually Lose, Against Google