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Google Violated Copyright Law, Court Says

Posted on: Tuesday, 13 February 2007, 18:00 CST

A Belgian court Tuesday said Google Inc. violated Belgian copyright law when it posted news snippets and links to Belgian newspapers online without permission.

The court ordered the Internet search-engine and advertising company to remove the Belgian newspaper content, photos and links from the Google site and pay a retroactive fine of $32,390 for each day they were not removed -- a fine Britain's Telegraph newspaper estimated could top $4.7 million.

Google of Mountain View, Calif., said it would appeal and asserted its Google News Service was entirely legal.

Google News was introduced in Belgium in January 2006, showing headlines, photos and the first few lines of Belgian newspaper stories, with links to the full articles on the newspapers' Web sites.

Google said this provided a service and drove traffic to the newspapers' sites, helping to boost their advertising revenue.

But editors accused Google of using the news content to generate colossal traffic and advertising profits.

The court ruled Google also violated Belgian data-storage law by archiving stories the papers usually charge for. Most Belgian newspapers let readers read current news stories for free but charge for older stories.

Source: United Press International

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