http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=196600743

Quote :

" Google Loses Copyright Case In Belgium A court ruled that Google violated the law by publishing copyrighted content without permission on Google News and ordered the infringing articles, pictures, and links removed. By Thomas Claburn InformationWeek Feb 13, 2007 04:00 PM A court in Belgium ruled Tuesday that Google violated the law by publishing copyrighted content without permission on Google News and ordered the infringing articles, pictures, and links removed. Google expressed disappointment with the judgment and promised to appeal. "We believe that Google News is entirely legal," a company spokesperson says. "We only ever show the headlines and a few snippets of text and small thumbnail images. If people want to read the entire story they have to click through to the newspaper's Web site. Search tools such as Google Web Search and Google News are of real benefit to publishers because they drive valuable traffic to their Web sites and connect them to a wider global audience." Google may have a point: According to statistics provided by Amazon's Alexa.com, Le Soir and La Derniere Heure -- two of the Belgian papers represented by Copiepresse, the group of 18 French- and German-language publications that brought the suit early in 2006 -- show a slight decline in traffic over the past year. It's not clear, however, whether the drop in traffic is coincidental or is the result of efforts by Google to remove the disputed content and make it unavailable to searchers. Copiepresse told Le Soir that it expected the ruling would have significant international impact because the Belgian legislation in question corresponds to broader European rights. Google could thus face similar claims in other E.U. countries. Copiepresse already has indicated that it might pursue similar cases against Microsoft and Yahoo. The decision represents a setback for Google and its ambitions to expand information access. "I think it's a serious wake-up call to Google that says you've got a very aggressive approach to copyright," says Lee Carl Bromberg, co-founder of Bromberg & Sunstein, a law firm specializing in intellectual property issues. "This is a significant ruling against them saying not only have you gone too far, but it's going to cost you." The ruling will cost Google, though less than the initial proposed penalty of 1 million ($1.3 million) per day. The court reduced a retroactive daily fine imposed for noncompliance last September to 25,000 ($32,470) per day. Google says it complied with the order that same month, but Copiepresse claims infringing material was still available through Google three weeks ago. Bernard Magrez, a lawyer for Copiepresse, estimates that Google is currently liable for 3 million ($3.9 million), down from 130 million ($168.84 million), according to Le Soir. More broadly, the ruling may send the message to other potential litigants that Google's dominance online doesn't carry over into court. Even though the decision in Belgium isn't binding in the United States, Bromberg says, "I wouldn't be surprised to see people fighting Google elsewhere cite the decision in their legal briefs." "

This all seems pretty ridiculous to me. I don't see how this is much different from people giving a small quote and giving a source. I also don't understand why they would mind the free advertisement.

[Edited on February 14, 2007 at 8:50 AM. Reason : i guess maybe they think they can charge for the privilige of having a couple sentences and a link?]

2/14/2007 8:49:11 AM

Belgium must hate being popular

2/14/2007 9:40:04 AM

do people think that the belgian papers have a right to keep google from using a couple sentences from an article with a link?

2/14/2007 12:46:05 PM

Google has certainly be aggressively challenging conventional notions about copyrights. It will be interesting to look back 5 years from now and see how this all plays out.

2/14/2007 12:58:14 PM

they're only shooting themselves in the feet.

2/14/2007 3:33:14 PM

Marketing 101:

Be happy you are showing up on google

Marketing 201:

Don't piss google off.

2/15/2007 9:17:36 AM

I definitely agree with the ruling -- the question of "fair use" should take into account the copyright owner's business, after all.

There's a pretty legitimate question of whether newspapers are in the business of selling headlines and snippets. I am willing to bet that the vast majority of news subscribers do not read all or most stories' full texts. I am also willing to bet that newspapers invest a lot of time, money, and energy into choosing their headlines and leaders for that very reason. There's a lot of value that news sources provide in "skimmability."

And when you consider Google's broad swath of aggregated coverage -- they are really competing with, rather than augmenting, the news media.

Personally I don't see how taking headlines and leaders is any different from posting Jon Stewart clips on Youtube. The whole point of fair use is to promote parody and review, not to extract the most valuable parts of copyrighted works and make them available for free.

On another note: Google has billions of dollars in the bank. They can afford to negotiate with news sources for royalties. Screw them for being so greedy and cavalier.

[Edited on February 16, 2007 at 3:26 AM. Reason : foo]

2/16/2007 3:26:18 AM

Quote :

"I don't see how this is much different from people giving a small quote and giving a source."

This from the guy who copied-and-pasted a whole article into TWW. Of course you wouldn't understand. I'm guessing you think InformationWeek is a non-profit charity?

2/16/2007 3:30:42 AM

Quote :

"On another note: Google has billions of dollars in the bank. They can afford to negotiate with news sources for royalties. Screw them for being so greedy and cavalier."

i think more gets to the issue. there's no way that this would have been a big deal had google news not been so popular.

Quote :

"This from the guy who copied-and-pasted a whole article into TWW. Of course you wouldn't understand. I'm guessing you think InformationWeek is a non-profit charity?"

i understand how what i did might be an issue. but it's also a guy who recently completed writing a thesis and knows that a quoted sentence or two from a cited source is well within fair use. sure it's this paper's right to be stupid and not take free advertising. but i really don't think there was any malicious intent, nor does google even put any ads AT ALL in their news section. and if the argument is that they're mostly selling one or two sentence snippets with headlines, i'd ask: "how many subscribers to belgium's newspaper are lost versus how many random people from all over the globe were gained?"

2/16/2007 8:09:15 AM

^

Quote :

"i think more gets to the issue. there's no way that this would have been a big deal had google news not been so popular."

Well, duh. Noone is going to spend their money in court if they don't think they'll get a return on it.

That has nothing to do with the principle of the matter -- which is that Google can and should provide their news service fairly and legally.

Quote :

"but it's also a guy who recently completed writing a thesis and knows that a quoted sentence or two from a cited source is well within fair use."

First of all, they aren't just taking "a sentence or two" -- they're taking what is arguably the most valuable (business-wise) section of the content.

Furthermore, you should know from your thesis that fair use isn't just about the amount that's copied. It's about the nature of the content and how it's used, and the effect it has on the copyright owner.

Clearly Google in this case is not just using "a quoted sentence or two." They're taking the attention-grabbing, summarizing elements of articles, and lumping them together into a service that competes with the original news sources.

Again, in pretty much any other medium, there would be no question that Google News is illegal and infringing -- it's like a service that aggregates all the funny Daily Show clips in a week ("just a few seconds," after all). The only difference, of course, is that people -- especially snide, article-copying TWWers -- think news is a commodity that just exists because people feel like writing stories.

And your point about advertising is totally bogus. The basic point of copyright is that the authors/owners of the work decide how to make money off it. You should know that. Noone is saying that a service like Google News can't exist, but that it should exist legally, at the copyright owners' behest.

Plus I'd like to know at what point you became an advertising executive capable of assessing the worldwide impact of Google News on these companies' bottom lines.

2/16/2007 1:15:46 PM

Quote :

"Plus I'd like to know at what point you became an advertising executive capable of assessing the worldwide impact of Google News on these companies' bottom lines."

never. and i never attempted to make any conclusions about it. i just posed a question.

Quote :

"Clearly Google in this case is not just using "a quoted sentence or two." They're taking the attention-grabbing, summarizing elements of articles, and lumping them together into a service that competes with the original news sources."

is cnn not able to report on other news sources' content? 'ap reported today 'blah blah blah'. i respect the paper's right to ask for their content to be removed. go for it whatever. but i don't think they're owed any money unless they can somehow prove they were in any way damaged by google. it just seems like they were looking for a one-time money grab and that's all.

2/16/2007 2:03:41 PM

Quote :

"is cnn not able to report on other news sources' content? 'ap reported today 'blah blah blah'."

Usually CNN runs AP stories themselves in their whole form because they have licensing agreements with them. But I digress.

Clearly you can understand this, though -- let's say CNN just uses a piece of an AP article in reference.

CNN Story:

"blah blah blah and today, an AP source reports, 'yada yada yada'"

_In context_, as part of a broader work.

Google News:

<reprint the headline and first paragraph of the AP story, no context>

There is an inherent "value to society" argument vis a vis Fair Use about the first case. OK, CNN quotes AP. And FOX quotes CNN. And then ABC News quotes FOX. And so on. It furthers the field of journalism by having contextualized reporting. And everyone makes money, too.

In the second case, the only reason for the derivative work is to make Google money, at the expense of the copyright owners'. Google runs a bunch of headlines and leaders, keys ads to them, ka-ching. The copyright owners have no say in how their work is used, nor is there any broader context for it.

Oh yea, and the law explicitly says that quotes may be used for news reporting. You know, that whole "law" thing?

Surely you can see the difference here.

Quote :

"i respect the paper's right to ask for their content to be removed. go for it whatever. but i don't think they're owed any money unless they can somehow prove they were in any way damaged by google."

Um ... OK, let's get back to basics here. The copyright owners don't have to prove damages. They own the copyright. Google has to prove they weren't misusing the authors' work. And even if they didn't cost them any money per se, they are liable for punitive damages.

Especially given their obvious greed and size.

2/18/2007 3:26:39 PM

Quote :

"In the second case, the only reason for the derivative work is to make Google money, at the expense of the copyright owners'. Google runs a bunch of headlines and leaders, keys ads to them, ka-ching. The copyright owners have no say in how their work is used, nor is there any broader context for it."

Quote :

"Especially given their obvious greed and size."

again, they run no ads on google news.

and it's not exactly a paragraph. they often don't even show a full sentence (usually it's one sentence if an article is the most recent one indexed on that story, and just the article title otherwise). every article has a link to the (normally ad-driven) original paper.

i just wonder how this is much different than saying that search engines in general are breaking copyright law. they provide pretty much the same amount of information, and they usually have advertising and no broader context. really what is the difference? do newspapers have some special claim on their content that other websites don't have. it seems like a big double standard if you ask me.

[Edited on February 18, 2007 at 8:20 PM. Reason : .]

2/18/2007 8:01:24 PM

Quote :

" again, they run no ads on google news."

Heh, yea -- because if they did, they would be violating copyright law.

Quote :

"The reason: The minute Google News runs paid advertising of any sort it could face a torrent of cease-and-desist letters from the legal departments of newspapers, which would argue that "fair use" doesn't cover lifting headlines and lead paragraphs verbatim from their articles. Other publishers might simply block users originating from Google News, effectively snuffing it out."

(from Wired, Sep 2004)

Hey, does this argument sound familiar? Hmmm?

The only problem being that -- duh -- they're violating copyright law anyways. Even if Google per se doesn't make money off News, it's still basically advertising for them and promoting their brand. And, frankly, now that the flood gates are open, I wouldn't be surprised to see Adwords pop up there shortly.

You really need to think about this more. Imagine how much money Google would have to pay to have their logo at the top of the New York Times's front page. Well, with Google News, they don't have to -- they just stick their logo at the top of everyone's front page.

It's obviously unfair. You know it.

Quote :

"i just wonder how this is much different than saying that search engines in general are breaking copyright law."

There's a very good argument that in many cases, search engines are violating copyright law. I have no doubt about that.

I also think it's very fair for businesses that work very, very, very hard to produce content to have a say in how that content is used.

So, no, I don't have a double standard. I will say that I think the copyright violations that may exist in search (particularly with caching) are far less pernicious. There's less obvious opportunism there. There is a better case for fair use in most instances, although I think the keying of ads to search results needs real thought in that context.

But getting back to the narrower subject of news: I think the other thing you're missing, is frankly that Google's News service does not just compete with some bulky, ad-driven news site.

Most newspapers and syndication services already provide RSS feeds outside of their subscriberwall. These feeds are, IMO, the real alternative to Google News, not the naive "type in http://www.nytimes.com" that you envision in your position.

If Google were serious about copyright-safe aggregation, they would just interleave RSS feeds within their own reader service instead of subjugating the news services entirely under their own banner. As it is the "value" they add is just their own branding, and maybe bringing some odd edge sources into the mix.

2/20/2007 12:00:00 AM

Quote :

"I also think it's very fair for businesses that work very, very, very hard to produce content to have a say in how that content is used."

I agree.

And I think it's stupid for them to not want it to appear on Google News.

But, hey, if they don't want people actually reading what they have to say, that's their perogative.

Quote :

"As it is the "value" they add is just their own branding, and maybe bringing some odd edge sources into the mix."

No, they're absolutely bringing some odd edge sources into the mix. Take "value" out of quotes and delete the word "maybe."

[Edited on February 20, 2007 at 12:56 AM. Reason : sss]

2/20/2007 12:54:24 AM

Quote :

" And I think it's stupid for them to not want it to appear on Google News."

You can think that all you want, but this isn't about what you think. It's about the law. It's their right as content authors to not be shown on Google News, because they produced it.

Having said that -- if you seriously think the New York Times is gonna be hurtin' cuz Google News isn't indexing them, I want some of what you're smoking. Or the Copiepresse papers, for that matter.

And don't even get me started on how ridiculously inaccurate Alexa.com is. It's the world's most biased sampling ever. I can't believe InformationWeek would cite them and not acknowledge anywhere how incredibly stupid using that measure of traffic in this context is.

Quote :

" No, they're absolutely bringing some odd edge sources into the mix. Take "value" out of quotes and delete the word "maybe.""

*Dons dark robes, starts chanting in monotone* Alll haiiillll Gooogglleee, mighty priest of the Internet! Goooogggllleee apprroaachetth, value creeaattteetthhhh ...

Yea, ok. Like I said, whatever you're smokin' ...

[Edited on February 20, 2007 at 1:50 AM. Reason : foo]

2/20/2007 1:50:28 AM

Quote :

"Smoker4: You can think that all you want, but this isn't about what you think. It's about the law. It's their right as content authors to not be shown on Google News, because they produced it."

Yeah, I caught that. And I agreed with the law when I agreed with you that "it's very fair for businesses that work very, very, very hard to produce content to have a say in how that content is used."

Thanks for ignoring that I said that just so you could get sassy with me.

Fucking bitch.

2/20/2007 2:39:12 AM

again, i think it's ok to ask google news to take your stuff down. but i honestly don't think it's justified to take punitive damages (unless they didn't adhere to your initial request)

2/20/2007 1:39:02 PM

If I was Google I would just stop servicing the entire damn country. It's not like it's a big loss.

2/20/2007 1:48:45 PM

well this ruling (if i understand it right) has implications for the entire EU.

2/20/2007 1:53:09 PM

i wonder if we'll see similar suits in the US.

2/21/2007 1:49:57 AM