Belgian Newspapers Demand Cash from Google

Claiming that snippets of news articles appearing on Google News violated its copyrights, a group representing Belgian newspapers wants $77.3 million in damages.

From an intellectual property perspective, it’s not easy being a search engine. Only a little more than a year ago, Google was fighting with a pornographer over dirty thumbnails. Now, Belgian newspapers are taking issue with Google’s caching of their content, and demanding big bucks.

The Belgian copyright defense group Copiepresse has actually been chasing Google since April 2006 over the way it caches newspaper content for Google News, but the group is now demanding up to €49.2 million ($77.3 million USD) in damages. An initial lawsuit that ended in September 2006 and was upheld in February 20007 after an appeal already determined that Google must cease reproducing snippets from Belgian papers, which it complied with, but the latest court document demands that Google cough up hard cash for the portions reproduced.

Although Reuters reports that Copiepresse distributed copies of the May 23 court document to major press outlets, Google denied on Tuesday that it had even received it yet. “We strongly believe that Google News and Google Web search are legal, and that we have not violated Copiepresse’s copyright,” said Google spokesman Gabriel Stricker, according to CNet. “This is why we are appealing the February 2007 ruling. We consider that this new claim for damages is groundless, and we intend to vigorously challenge it.”