Google defeated in Belgian copyright case

Found on Ars Technica on Monday, 12 February 2007
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The group of disgruntled newspapers in Belgium that sued Google for copyright infringement has emerged victorious after a decision was granted in their favor today in court. The judgment echoes a previous ruling from the Court of First Instance in Brussels that found Google in violation of copyright law when the company published extracts of articles from Belgian newspaper publishers.

Copiepresse, the Belgium copyright group representing the nearly 20 papers scandalized by Google News, now gets its wish: Google News may no longer link to the news resources in question nor cache any of their materials for use in Google News.

They actually resented the fact that Google News might direct readers to their content, because they feared that a search engine might do what it is designed to do: get people what they want the first time. Copiepresse's member companies would prefer that you hit their home pages and wander around aimlessly instead. No, I'm not joking.

I don't understand why Google would even consider to challenge the ruling. They could just ask for a list of those 20 members and remove all of their content from the index. Or, even nicer, replace results with a note saying that they are not allowed to link there. After all, Google is a company and can decide what to include and what to exclude. I'd just delete their content, shrug, and move on.