Belgian newspapers seek $77 million damages from Google for copyright violation

28 May 2008

The ubiquitous Google News may be in for a setback as a group of Belgian newspaper publishers wants the software major to pay up to €49.2 million ($77.5 million / Rs331 crore) in damages for violating copyright law by publishing their articles and caching their web pages.

Belgian copyright defence group Copiepresse has filed a court document last week asking for the damages, it disclosed yesterday. "We entered in negotiations with Google to reach an agreement, but they have now failed," said Margaret Boribon, secretary general of Copiepresse.

Now Copiepresse is asking for between €32.8 million and €49.2 million in damages, and wants Google to appear in court on 18 September at a hearing to decide whether the newspapers' copyright was infringed and to rule on the claim for damages, according to the summons. It also requested €4 million as "provisional" payment.

If Google contests the claims, Copiepresse wants the court to review Google's server logs going as far back as 2001, to see how many readers have consulted its members' news articles.

Copiepresse had first filed suit over the Google News service in April 2006. Since then the case has been slowly moving forward. The Court of First Instance in Brussels sided with Copiepresse in September that year, ordering Google to remove the Belgian websites from Google News and its main search engines, which it did. The court reaffirmed its decision in February 2007, but Google appealed.

Copiepresse and Google had apparently been in talks after the February 2007 ruling about how to reach a mutually agreeable solution. Last May, Google reportedly began reinstating links to Belgian newspaper sites in its main search results as a result of some of those negotiations.