BEIJING, Feb. 14 (Xinhuanet)-- Google lost a copyright lawsuit in a Belgian court Tuesday and may not be allowed to reproduce extracts from French- and German-language Belgian newspapers.

    The court ruled that Google violated the law by publishing copyrighted content without permission on Google News and ordered the infringing articles, pictures and links removed.

    Google said it would appeal, claiming its Google News service was "entirely legal" and the Belgian ruling did not set any precedent.

    In August 2006, Copie of presse, a rights-management society representing all the main French and German language daily newspapers in Belgium along with four other press associations sued Google, stating the Google News Belgium website had not asked for permission to use their content and had violated copyright laws.

    The court also demanded that Google post the entire text of the judgment on the Google.be and Google News Belgium homepages and said that a fine of 500,000 U.S. dollars a day would be levied for non-compliance. At first, Google asked the court to reconsider, but it later posted the ruling on its website.

    Gerrit Vandendriessche, an associate with Belgian firm Altius, believes that the case will affect the relationship between search engines and newspapers in the future.

    Copyright infringement by search engines has become an increasingly sensitive issue. Google has also been under fire for wanting to scan in books without publishers' permission for its Google Print program. Meanwhile, its YouTube unit has been facing takedown orders from companies such as Viacom for running videos of Viacom shows without the media giant's permission.