Google has appealed against the February ruling that it violated Belgian copyright law. An appeal hearing is scheduled for July 17, but Google and Copiepresse are negotiating first.

Jason Fry says Copiepresse’s fight against Google is "a bid to turn back time and declare a do-over on the basics of search engines — a quixotic effort that flies in the face of the reality of how content is consumed today".

The Belgian newspapers are using the “no archive” tag that prevents Google’s from caching their webpages. Google has not signed a license to use the newspapers’ content, and maintains its legal position.

"Belgian French-language newspapers were back on Google on Thursday after agreeing that the search engine can link to their Web sites, the first signs of a thaw in a bitter copyright dispute."