Belgium"s copyright enforcement group, Copiepresse, first attacked Google and is now moving onto Yahoo. Copiepresse argued that Google"s summarizing and linking to Belgium"s newspapers constitutes as copyright infringement. A Belgian court agreed, ordering the search engine to remove the content from Google News and its search index while fining it €1.3 million for each day of noncompliance. Google is appealing the court"s ruling.
Yahoo, like Google News and other news aggregators, publishes summaries and links to news articles all over the Internet. Copiepresse has sent a "cease and desist" letter to Yahoo, requesting that they stop linking to articles on the newspapers" websites. Yahoo has released a statement saying that it "respects the copyright of content owners" and will "respond in an appropriate manner" to Copiepresse"s complaints.
Belgian newspapers benefit in the short term because they have more control over their content but in the long term their sites receive less traffic. Copyright infringement should be punished but is that really why the two companies are in court?