A ruling against Google in a copyright case in Belgium may influence courts in other European countries, but not the US where laws are more permissible, copyright lawyers said on Tuesday.

A Belgian court on Tuesday ordered the search giant to refrain from showing excerpts of articles from French- and German-language Belgian newspapers on Google News and Google's web search site for Belgium, reaffirming an earlier ruling by the same court against the company. However, in a nod to Google, the court reduced the daily fine Google faces if it fails to heed the order, from $1.3m (£665,000) to $32,500 (£16,640).

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