DailyTech - Belgium Court Rules Against Google in Copyright Infringement Case

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Internet Belgium Court Rules Against Google in Copyright Infringement Case
Tuan Nguyen (Blog) - February 13, 2007 4:21 PM

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8 comment(s) - last by Tyler 86.. on Feb 14 at 11:39 PM

Google continues receiving flak over text copyright

As Google continues its project on reproducing the world's printed material into a searchable digital format, the search giant also continues to face discontentment from a number of news print organizations. This week, a Belgian court ruled that Google may not reproduce material from a number of news papers in the country.

Copiepresse, the organization that manages copyrights for Belgium's French and German language newspapers said that Google's online text search is making material that is for paid subscribers fully viewable to the public. Many news organizations that publish their work online tend to make those articles paid-only after a certain time period of being free. Google faced a ruling last year in Europe that proposed a $1.3 million USD per day fine for reproducing articles online without prior consent. This week's court ruling reduced that fine to a small $32,000 per day fine but representatives from Google said that the company was disappointed with the ruling altogether and would plan to appeal.

According Margaret Borbon, the secretary-general of Copiepresse, her organization is entirely willing to work with Google on hammering out a fair contract. "The initial purpose was to have a fair agreement," said Borbon. Copiepresse hopes that it will be able to have Google pay a set fee for displaying articles in its search engine.

Copiepresse is also up against Yahoo for reproducing news material online.

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I think...

By heffeque on 2/13/2007 9:48:51 PM , Rating: 2

I think that those Belgium newspaper chiefs have no idea of what they're doing. Too bad for them :-/

RE: I think...

By stmok on 2/14/2007 6:25:55 AM , Rating: 2

I don't think any of the folks in the media and content industry has a friggin clue when it comes to the internet and the potential possibilities to be made.

They are still stuck in thinking about the traditional business model.

Their slow reposnse to new things is what's gonna be hurting them.

I think you can call it denial.

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RE: I think...

By heffeque on 2/14/2007 7:26:20 PM , Rating: 2

Denial: you couldn't have said it with a better word.

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RE: I think...

By Tyler 86 on 2/14/2007 11:39:49 PM , Rating: 2

I don't think I've seen such behavior described more precisely.

Well put.

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This is similar to music/movies and DRM + YouTube/MySpace

By Spartan Niner on 2/13/2007 9:38:32 PM , Rating: 2

Again, these people are shooting themselves in the feet - Google directs quite a bit of traffic to news sites that otherwise would be unknown to many people (news.google.com = lots of random sources). It's like cracking down on YouTube/MySpace mp3s/music vids/etc. - you're simply eliminating the most effective form of marketing.

RE: This is similar to music/movies and DRM + YouTube/MySpace

By PseudoKnight on 2/13/2007 10:03:43 PM , Rating: 2

Given that they could block googlebot altogether quite easily, I think their purpose is not to discourage the traffic that gets directed their way but to prevent google from caching expired free articles.

I think it would be an easy implementation to allow the bot to crawl the site but not cache it. Still, I would have been happier if they worked with Google instead of suing them.

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The Future of...speaking?

By Obujuwami on 2/13/2007 9:27:32 PM , Rating: 2

I can see the future now...My children get sued for saying the phrase "excuse me" when obviously some super conglomerate or media agency owns the rights to that phrase. We should all learn sign language now and avoid the rush!

Seriously, if you have writen an article and you depend on the money that the atricle generates then get a good contract together and talk to Google or Yahoo. Smart people will be going to these companies looking to make money off of them.

In the mean time, I like the idea that google has. I have been searching for books that are out of print for years and when google is done I will be able to read any book i want for a small $1 puchase. I could live with that but obviously Belgum can't.

Also, check the last paragraph, there is a typo.

Short-sighted cash grab

By dsnider on 2/14/2007 5:37:18 PM , Rating: 2

This is merely a cash grab at Google, and in essence they are biting the hand that feeds them...

On the web, if you offer a paid service on your website, the most valuable resource is traffic -- something which Google is providing to these news sites for free.

I don't know what these newspapers are bitching about, because Google does not cache entire news articles -- only a very brief summary, which is generally allowable, and without which nobody would have reason to click on the link to find out more.

People don't read their news on Google News... they only find headlines and links there.

Anyone who doesn't want Google sending free traffic to their website should disable search engine indexing using the robots exclusion standard (robots.txt) or use the NOINDEX html tag.

If you aren't adhering to proper and long established Internet standards and protocols, then you have no business having a website in the first place, and certainly have no grounds for legal action.