Belgian newspaper group wants $77 million from Google

The Belgian press editors association Copiepresse has been at odds with Google since last year over the appearance of its member publications' work in Google News, and now it wants to be compensated.

In a court filing earlier this week, apparently with the Brussels federal court, Copiepresse asked for €49 million (approximately $77 million USD) in damages resulting from Google's having excerpted articles from Copiepresse's member publications without authorization.

The European Court of First Instance is also in Brussels, and Copiepresse also has legal actions pending against Google there.

Belgian court rulings in February 2007 forced Google news to stop reproducing Belgian news articles. The search company later resumed indexing the articles after the country's publishers agreed to employ code that instructs Google not to archive their pages.

Google told BetaNews this morning that it had not received anything from Copiepresse, but took the opportunity to reiterate that it believes the service respects publishers rights.

"We strongly believe that Google News and Google web search are legal, and that we have not violated Copiepresse's copyright," a spokesperson said. "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."

While many news outlets seem to enjoy the added promotion that Google News gives its content, some have taken issue with the site's acting without permission or authority. Google's bots cull stories and imagery to create its own aggregate pages, and frequently it uses images that wire services and agencies such as Copiepresse otherwise only offer to similar aggregators for sale.

Google did not have formal arrangements for compensation, although in 2006 it started working out similar deals, including one it signed in August of that year with the Associated Press.

This is not the first time the search engine got in trouble for the site: Agence France Presse sued Google in 2005 for using its content, although it later settled.