A Belgian copyright defense association said on Thursday it had demanded the French division of Internet portal Yahoo stop reproducing snippets of Belgian press reports.

“We sent a warning letter to them yesterday demanding that they remove our content or make an agreement with us,” Margaret Boribon, head of the Copiepresse group, told Reuters.

An official at Yahoo France had no comment.

Copiepresse, which manages copyrights for French- and German-language newspapers in Belgium, is waiting for a Belgian court to rule on an injunction it filed to block Web search engine Google reproducing snippets of Belgian press.

“We are waiting for it (the verdict) to come before the end of the month,” Boribon said.

Copiepresse argues that versions of news articles that Google stores can be seen using the company’s service even after the articles are no longer freely accessible on a newspaper’s Web site, a process known as caching.

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