Google, the internet seach engine, has been told that its popular news service Google News - which assimilates articles from various newspapers and other sites - breaches copyright law.

A Brussels court has ruled in favour of a group of Belgian newspapers which argued that the site, which lists links to news stories from around the world, used material without their consent, and ordered that the articles be taken down.

Google, which says that it has removed the offending content, claimed that its service was “entirely legal” and has said that it will appeal against the decision.

There was “no exception” for Google in copyright law, the Brussels Court of First Instance said, ruling that the company must pay a retroactive fine of €25,000 for each day the content remained on the site.

The case, which was brought by Copiepresse, a group representing 17 French and German language newspapers, including La Libre Belgique and Le Soir, may set a precedent for other newspapers in Europe, lawyers said.

The group had complained that Google’s ‘cached’ links - which refer users to older articles - offered access to content that would usually be paid for on a subscription basis.

“We confirm that that the activities of Google News, the reproduction of headlines as well as short extracts, and the use of Google’s cache, the publicly available data storage of articles and documents, violate the law on authors’ rights,” the ruling said.

Google, which said its lawyers were still examining the judgment, said that it was “disappointed” with the decision and would appeal.

“We only ever show the headlines and a few snippets of text and small thumbnail images. If people want to read the entire story they have to click through to the newspaper’s website,” the company said in a statement.

Analysts said they could not understand why the group, which has filed a similar action against Yahoo!, was pursuing the case, and that newspapers benefited from having stories indexed on Google News, which made their sites more prominent and boosted traffic.

“It’s utterly mad what they’re doing,” David Bradshaw, principal analyst with Ovum, said. “Google makes you relevant, it helps people find you. I can’t see how these people think being listed would be damaging.”

A London-based intellectual property lawyer who would not be named said: “I can’t imagine this will be the last word, and I doubt it will be a decision that is followed elsewhere.”

But David Hooper, a partner at Reynolds Porter Chamberlain in London said that the case could give rise to similar actions, and that Google’s ‘cache’ service allowed users to avoid paying subscription fees.

“Google has a tendency to think about the cash first and ask questions later,” Mr Hooper said.

Last year Google delayed plans for a Danish news website after newspapers complained, and in 2005 the company was sued by the French news agency Agence France Presse for linking to its content for free.

Google shares were up nearly half a percent to $460.44 in trading on the Nasdaq trading today.

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