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.
"This is about the Internet. Everything on the Internet is encrypted. This is not a BlackBerry-only issue. If they can't deal with the Internet, they should shut it off." -- RIM co-CEO Michael Lazaridis
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