Brussels, 20 July, 2011 - The European Newspaper Publishers’ Association (ENPA) expresses concerns about Google’s temporary removal of Belgian francophone newspapers from its search engine for several days in the last week. In doing so, Google appears to have misinterpreted the recent ruling of the Belgian Court of Appeal in the Copiepresse vs. Google case.

Although ENPA welcomes Google’s latest decision to put the newspapers back on its search engine, there are still concerns that Google uses its position in the market to exert strong influence over the operation of the Internet.

In May 2011, the Court of Appeal of Brussels confirmed a 2007 judgment in a case taken by Belgian newspaper publishers against Google News for copyright infringement. The outcome of the appeal in the Copiepresse vs. Google case confirmed that Google had reproduced illegally and without prior authorisation a significant part of copyrighted material from the francophone and German language press in Belgium.

ENPA would like to underline that this court decision does not concern the referencing of newspaper articles in Google’s search function. Instead, the ruling centres on the copyright infringement committed by the reproduction of newspaper content in cached copies and in Google News. The recent action by Google to temporarily remove articles from Belgian francophone newspapers from its search engine cannot therefore be justified under the terms of this ruling.

ENPA Vice President Valdo Lehari Jr., Chair of ENPA’s Digital Working Group, stated: “The decision of Google to treat the content of Belgian francophone newspaper publishers in this unpredictable way demonstrates the potential danger of one company becoming a virtual gate-keeper of the Internet.”

Newspaper publishers had already raised awareness, at both national and European level, of the necessity for Google to both respect copyright and take a neutral approach to the search function. Inquiries into Google’s activities have already been undertaken in France and Italy.
In November 2010, the European Commission launched a formal antitrust investigation into Google’s function as a search engine based on complaints by competing companies Ciao, Foundem and ejustice.fr. German newspaper and magazine publishers have since joined this ongoing case.

You can download the PDF of the ENPA statement here


The European Newspaper Publishers’ Association (ENPA) is a non-profit organisation representing the interests of the newspaper and news media sector on all platforms. Our members represent some 5200 titles from 26 European countries. More than 120 million newspapers are sold each day and read by over 235 million people in Europe.