Copiepresse attacks EC for copyright infringement, but gets dismissed

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

The Belgium newspaper Association Copiepresse has initiated a legal
complaint against the European Commission (EC) arguing that it infringes its
copyright through the NewsBrief and NewsExplorer aggregation services.

Copiepresse became famous for its copyright suit against Google and other
search engines claiming copyright infringement over the aggregation services
done by the search engines. The association has initiated a new action in
the Belgian Court of Seizures considering that the European Commission is
counterfeiting its member’s news articles by using small part of them in
order to prepare a news collation marketed as NewsBrief and NewsExplorer.

The Belgium Court rejected the Copiepresse claim, confirming the EC opinion
that the competent courts on the matter are the European Courts.

Copiepresse announced that they wouldn’t appeal the decision, claiming
“startegic reasons” and explaining that they just wanted to get the EC out
in the open, since they didn’t reply to any message on the topic. But at the
same time the Association announced that they would continue the case in the
Bruxelles civil court, where an action of cease&desist has already been
introduced.

The European Commission representatives claimed in court that its services
are just press reviews, that fall under the exemptions from the copyright
law protection.

The judge initially ordered a judicial expertise in order to gather more
technical information about how the site was built, but then he dismissed
this evidence and took his decisions only on jurisdictional grounds.

Copiepresse sues the European Commission to the civil court (only in French,
27.06.2008)
http://www.actu24.be/article/regions/regionbruxelles/infosbxl/copiepresse_poursuit_la_commission_europeenne_devant_le_trib_civil/162754.aspx

Belgian press beef with EU beaten in Belgian court (1.07.2008)
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/07/01/copiepresse-slapped-eu-court

Belgian agency to sue European Commission again over news aggregator
(2.07.2008)
http://www.out-law.com/page-9227

EDRi-gram: Belgium newspaper group continues its actions against search
engines (25.10.2006)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.20/belgium