VZCZCXRO1013
RR RUEHAG RUEHDF RUEHIK RUEHLZ RUEHROV
DE RUEHBS #0790/01 0681233
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 091233Z MAR 07
FM AMEMBASSY BRUSSELS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 4614
INFO RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BRUSSELS 000790 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EUR/UBI and EEB/TPP/IPE 
COMMERCE FOR USPTO 
 
TAGS: EINT KIPR BE
SUBJECT: BELGIAN NEWSPAPER GROUP SUES GOOGLE OVER COPYRIGHTS 
 
¶1. (U) SUMMARY.  On February 13, a Belgian court upheld an 
earlier ruling against Google in a copyright dispute over 
news article headlines, excerpts, and links on its Google 
Belgium and Google News Belgium websites.  The suit was 
brought by Copiepresse, a newspaper group representing 17 
Belgian newspapers including Le Soir and La Libre Belgique. 
The group claimed that its articles, editorials, and 
contributions hold significant value and that the technology 
employed by Google's search services compromises their 
content by allowing web users to avoid archived article 
charges normally levied by the publishers' own websites. 
The February decision reiterated the previous court order 
for removal of links to the group's content, but in a 
victory for Google, lowered the fine for each day's delay in 
removing the content to 25,000 euros per day from the 
original 1,000,000 euros per day.  Google maintains 
Copiepresse's legal action was unwarranted because 
sufficient extra-legal remedies to their complaints exist 
and because the contested content is only offered in 
excerpted form, which according to Google constitutes "fair 
use." 
 
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CACHE-ING TECHNOLOGY AT ISSUE 
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¶2. (U) When Copiepresse originally brought suit it was 
joined by two groups representing Belgian photographers, 
SOFAM and SCAM; those two groups have since settled with 
Google.  Google argues that Copiepresse is taking issue over 
a technology that is inherent to how internet search engines 
operate.  When searching for a news story or any website on 
Google, a user is returned results based on keywords and 
tags placed within websites by their designers.  According 
to Google, content publishers and their web designers more 
often complain about exclusion from access to 8 million 
Google users than inclusion on a Google search for a 
particular keyword.  The deeper issue is that Google also 
offers an alternative to simply clicking on a link to a 
website and visiting its live content.  Google's engine 
continuously and proactively crawls the internet, copies, 
and then temporarily stores websites in its "cache."  This 
allows users to click on the cached link of a website 
instead of the active hyperlink, to access the copy Google 
has made, which is useful in case the live version of the 
site is experiencing technical problems or a user wants to 
see a historic version of tnt 
voval, and does not employ the cache 
feature, although many news articles can still be found, if 
no action is taken by the publisher, outside of Google News 
where they could possibly be cached.  Google estimates that 
95 percent of its news users do not navigate outside of 
Google News. 
 
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COMPANY POSITIONS 
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¶4. (U) Google argues that its cache feature is relatively 
unknown and is primarily used by web historians and 
archivists.  It stresses the two methods of removal of 
content, requests from publishers and the automated tagging 
system, and argues that the public benefits from historical 
recording of this type.  Google also states that it forwards 
for free very valuable web traffic to publisher's websites 
where users can be charged for subscriptions or content 
access.  Copiepresse claims that the automated method of 
excluding their sites is insufficient, because this 
technique is not legally recognized, and suggests that 
Google should not be allowed to dictate its own terms of 
copyright law adherence. 
 
 
BRUSSELS 00000790  002 OF 002 
 
 
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ISSUES STILL IN CONTENTION 
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¶5. (U) In response to the court order, Google removed any 
references to the plaintiffs' websites on all their Belgian 
search vehicles, such that if you typed "Le Soir" into 
Google.be, nothing, not even their homepage, comes back. 
Copiepresse claims that content is still appearing on other 
Google websites outside of Belgium and therefore, fines 
should still be accruing.  Google views the ruling as 
binding only for its Belgian domains, Google.be, 
news.google.be, and so forth, such that the court decision 
will not affect how it operates its search or web crawling 
cache in general.  Google continues to appeal the fines as 
well.  While dismissing the idea of paying the group solely 
for the right to cache its sites, Google has expressed 
openness to licensing agreements that would allow its users 
more open and in-depth access to publishers' content. 
 
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COMMENTS 
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¶6. (U) The persistence of Copiepresse in the legal arena 
over this issue may go beyond fulfilling its group members' 
interest in safeguarding their works, considering Google 
appears to have responded to the substance of their 
complaint.  Whether Copiepresse will be awarded any damages 
is not clear.  The group is also pursuing legal action 
against other search engines such as Yahoo and Microsoft. 
If no damages are imposed for possible past infringement, it 
would seem that Copiepresse could have obtained the same 
result - removing links to its publishers from Google - more 
cost-effectively by using mechanisms available within 
Google, i.e. asking Google to remove cache links to its 
sites, using anti-web crawling code, or entering 
negotiations with Google about revenue sharing through the 
hosting and syndication of premium and archived news 
content. 
IMBRIE