Google News Found Guilty of Copyright Violation 223
schmiddy writes "A court in Brussels, Belgium, has just found Google guilty of violating copyright law with its Google News aggregator. According to the ruling, Google News' links and brief summaries of news sources violates copyright law. Google will be forced to pay $32,600 for each day it displayed the links of the plaintiffs. Although Google plans to appeal, this ruling could have chilling effects on fair use rights on the web in the rest of Europe as well if other countries follow suit."
HHGTTG reference (Score:5, Funny)
News aggregates illegal in belgium? (Score:3, Insightful)
The courts should not address issues it has no understanding of. It should consist of younger people for technology-related rulings.
It doesnt even fit this particular scenario. Google News is almost unreadable already, the snippets they cut from each news source is just a few words, and most often not even complete sentences. It is more of a free advertisement for the News agencies, becaus
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It's time for today's top Slashdot humor tip. When someone references HHGTG, make sure that you understand the reference before slagging the OP.
=====> Joke
O
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What's good for the goose... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Media organisations are in the unique position that they are able to readily attract hits without using search engines like google as they already have a massive advertising medium - themselves. Have you ever visited a national newspaper webiste by searching for "national newspaper" in google?
I know I haven't and I bet it is quite rare that people discover their sites that way.
Re:What's good for the goose... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Really? I've never seen anyone do that...
Re:What's good for the goose... (Score:5, Interesting)
Back when I was employed at an ISP, we had a Google search box on our main page. Whenever our main page was down for updates or screwups, we *always* got calls from users asking when the page would be back up so they could surf the web. They would use the Google search box to get around the Internet instead of using the address bar or using a different search engine.
It's not far fetched that they will lose traffic if Google doesn't index them in their search results.
Re:What's good for the goose... (Score:4, Insightful)
If people typed in searches like 'www.nytimes.com', 'www.cnn.com', 'www.bbc.co.uk' into google and it didn't mention the respective websites then a lot of people would probably start switching their homepage away from Google.
I therefore doubt Google will consider de-listing mainstream newspaper websites. It would give Google an immense commercial disadvantage to their rivals!
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Yes, but if these rulings stand (through the appeal process,) you can bet that EVERY news aggregator / search engine will ALSO have to remove content / links to the pages, therefore no competitive disadvantage.
Without news aggregaters, there will be no way for major media sites to attract NEW customers / readers, and non-ahole media sites will end up with l
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For example if typing 'CNN' (and all the others) into Windows Live Search brings up the CNN website but Google brings up nothing (because google have de-listed CNN after refusing to let google aggregate their news) then Google certainly will have a commercial disadvantage to Windows Live Search and others. After a while people will stop using Google as their start page or
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When people are interested in a certain current event or other topic, they don't go to many different individual sites to find that content, they either go to a single news site or search for it on a search engine. If search engines are not allowed to display a short summary of the page, then you will end up with results like: "Cnn matches, NYT matches" which is USELESS. You need the snipit / sum
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Are you even reading the posts you are replying to?
The original post referred to possible Google reciprocal action of completely de-listing the websites from their search engine.
The rest of your post doesn't even make sense.
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This news article is all about the content of news sites on google - not whether you type in "cnn" and google returning the CNN home page URL. That is a pointless and mostly useless search, and discussion about it has NOTHING to do with what is going on. If google delists, they will most likely remove content oriented results so that if you search for CNN you get cnn, but if you search for "iraq" you won't get any results that point to articl
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It has everything to do with searches for "cnn". If you had read the previous posts you would see that the entire focus of this thread is people using google as an address bar and start page, not people searching for "Iraq" or whatever.
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Help the users place the appropriate blame (Score:2)
For example if typing 'CNN' (and all the others) into Windows Live Search brings up the CNN website but Google brings up nothing (because google have de-listed CNN after refusing to let google aggregate their news) then Google certainly will have a commercial disadvantage to Windows Live Search and others.
What if instead of bringing up nothing, Google brings up pages on Wikipedia and Chilling Effects Clearinghouse first and CNN's front page (not a specific section or story) below those but still on the first results page?
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In my experience, you'd be betting wrong. Since browsers started autosearching "i'm feeling lucky" google results*, people have indeed been just typing in e.g. "Irish Times" and indeed relying on google to get them to the relevant site, at least here in europe.
(* firefox is at least 20% of european browsers (source: Xiti), though it's lower worldwide).
Personally, I oppose copyright laws full stop, and I'm all for european
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God DAMN it, what do I gotta do to get rid of the one minute 'Slow Down Cowboy' limit here? It's just annoying, especially when I've got something topical to say.
Re:What's good for the goose... (Score:4, Informative)
From the article:
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Fair use vs. copy of? (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect this has more with newspapers getting annoyed that people are starting to type in "[MyCity] news" in Google more often than looking up their local newspaper's web site. The newspapers also would like to restrict access to their "archives" (which they regard as a pay-to-see resource).
Re:Fair use vs. copy of? (Score:5, Insightful)
Google news is unashamedly breaking copyright.. there's no argument there - the real question is why anyone would prosecute over something that's driving hits to their page and generating ad revenue?
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what then? can you not quote from a story that's so short since you would then be exceeding the 10% or 5% rules.. ?
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The newspapers also would like to restrict access to their "archives" (which they regard as a pay-to-see resource).
They can restrict access to their archives all they like now. I think what they're really scared of is that Google provides an easy way to find other news sources with the same story, that do not charge for access to their archive. What they are trying to do here is make Google less useful for searching for news stories, in an attempt to get back their captive audience.
The exponents hurt my brain (Score:2, Funny)
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MY new business model (Score:5, Funny)
2) MAKE SURE that my robot.txt allow google.fr to index
3) wait
4) leave the content at the same place but put a password
5) sue google.fr for copyright infringement.
6) profit
Strange, I think I forgot the ?? step somewhere...
Belgium IS NOT FRANCE!!! FFS (Score:4, Funny)
aepervius: google.fr
I'm guessing you're one of the 75% of Yanks who thinks "passport" is a request to share fortified wine, right?
Clue: google.be [google.be] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgium [wikipedia.org]
Differences between France and Belgium:
* Most Belgians speak Dutch, not French.
* In Belgium's extremely long varied history of occupation, the French occupied it for less than 25 years.
* Belgium still has a King. France killed all of theirs more than two hundred years ago.
* Belgium is NOT famous for good food. Trust me on this one. Typical menu: Ham and cheese with fries. Cheese fries with ham. Ham and fries with cheese. Pick any combination of the three. The fries are more like British "chips" except they are fried twice to make them crispier.
Re:Belgium IS NOT FRANCE!!! FFS (Score:5, Informative)
I won't trust you. As a matter a fact, you are straight out lying. I am married to a Belgian woman, and been to Belgium several times, and I can tell you from personal experience that they do have excellent food beyond "Ham and fries with cheese". Most of the food I tried was French influenced, cooked with a lot of wine, red and white meats, sea food, etc. Delicious stuff. I don't think one has to even mention their world renown deserts (chocolate, waffles) and beers.
That history of occupation you mentioned influenced Belgian cuisine a lot. It has allowed it to offer a magnificent mix of tastes from that part of Europe while still keeping a Belgian signature on the dishes. If there is one thing Belgians know how to do, it is eat and drink. Belgium cuisine may not be the most famous in the world but it is not something to sniff at, it is quiet good.
hmm (Score:3, Insightful)
You leave google, google leaves you. Buh-bye, thank-you for flying the interweb air, we hope you enjoyed your time on interweb and also hope to see you again soon.
IP Rights. (Score:5, Insightful)
Its more insidious then any terrorist group, or rouge nation.
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Well, "rouge" [google.com] states [wikipedia.org] do tend to be more obsessed with IP rights.
Lawyers, unfortunately, are pretty much omnipresent.
makeup states? (Score:2, Funny)
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Even the mauve, taupe, and paisley ones?
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Yes, you have to really watch out for those rouge nations. You never know what those people with the bright red cheeks are going to do next. I mean, they put colored stuff on their faces! What kind of insane bizarro thing is that?
More typos (Score:2)
But it did make it pretty funny
reminds me of France and iTunes (Score:5, Insightful)
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This reminds me of when France was going to force Apple to open iTunes, and Apple said fine, we'll leave. Or when the EU took on Microsoft.
On this planet, MS didn't leave the EU, nor did they any other muscle flexing. On planet slashdot, a few people talked about the "we're a big american company, we can do what we want, if the commie europeans don't want us, we'll just leave" approach, but were generally ridiculed.
Large corporations are especially easy to control, because they've got so much to loose. Back when Google was a startup without assets in every other corner of the world, they were much more difficult to get for local courts.
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I agree that the choice of media players hasn't happened. However, I very much doubt (and hope!) that courts don't think in terms of "winning" and "losing".
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Would it have killed you... (Score:5, Funny)
robots.txt (Score:4, Insightful)
If they do want to be scanned (and therefore indexed as well as cached) then don't.
Although, I for one, would prefer that we would have to *create* the file, and add entries that could say:
Scan=Yes
Index=Yes
Cache=No
If no robots.txt file is found, then do nothing for the site.
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Time to tighten the belt (Score:5, Funny)
Google will be forced to pay $32,600 for each day it displayed the links of the plaintiffs.
FROM: Eric Schmidt
TO: All Google Employees
Beginning today, employees will no longer be eligible for free Kona coffee and hourly massages. We apologize for the inconvenience.
I'm sure Google can implement a solution (Score:2)
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That will be enough to make the story partially readable, but moderately different.
For instance I put in a current headline: "US Troops Raid Shiite Areas of Baghdad"
And got back: "American forces raid Shiite areas of Baghdad"
Of course, it's not alw
Re:Saw This Yesterday (Score:5, Funny)
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so yes, multiple court cases.
Re:Saw This Yesterday (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGA
This article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/14/business/14goog
Notice they both talk about Google News and a group of French newspapers.
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Google caches *everything*, both to use it in parsing text to create the advertisement links and to have a cache available should the original be down, like, say, the
Re:Saw This Yesterday (Score:4, Interesting)
This is now a marketting leverage that Google I think should use until such time as someone calls them a monopoly on it and pulls anti-trust action on them.
From a customer standpoint, we use their site under their terms of service.
So too should an indexed site. Want to be indexed by Google so the world can find you? Agree to their terms of letting them cache your material. Some negotiations might be made for the size of the cache and the duration of it should your site be pulling stuff from the "free" zone, but generally, if you want to be found, you have to agree to be stored.
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"No cache, no search."
You'd see how quickly people clam up about being cached.
Meanwhile, it's like they've never used a robots.txt or something.
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Re:Do socialist countries just hate big business? (Score:4, Informative)
Belgium [wikipedia.org] is a constitutional monarchy, and it's current prime minister [wikipedia.org] is a member of the VLD party [wikipedia.org], which started out as a right-wing party and has since moved towards a centrist view.
You can read it all on Wikipedia if you spend 30 seconds looking for it. Provided you don't consider reading a socialist skill.
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The presence of a monarch and/or prime minister makes no difference at all in practice.
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Have you ever lived in an actual socialist country, to compare?
I'm a German, we've had an excellent long-term experiment in socialism in a part of our country. My family has friends from Russia. An ex-girlfriend of mine was from Poland and my wife's family is from Romania. I'm entirely certain that in order to consider western European countries "socialist", you have to have an extremely tainted, simplified and biased view of the world - and absolutely zero first-hand experien
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This is Slashdot, most every view is extremely tainted, simplified and biased. No experience whatsoever is needed. I thought that was a condition for admission?
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Re:Do socialist countries just hate big business? (Score:5, Informative)
But, like I originally said, I suspect it all depends on your definition... Most of the readers here will accept that Western Europe is mostly socialist and that Eastern European countries are still figuring things out after their experience with communism (not socialism). But I do remember that the USSR stood for "United Soviet Socialist Republics", even though nobody in the West ever really bought the assertion that the USSR was a socialist state... so clearly it isn't only you.
Regards,
Ross
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Most of the communist countries, however, did call themselves socialist. There are also fairly strong socialist parties in most of Europe. However, pretty much every adult member of society realizes they are about as socialist as the "christ
You must be joking. (Score:2)
High taxation, bureaucracy and big public sector are not characteristics exclusive of a socialist country.
Heck, taxation, as a matter of fact, can be low or non existent in a socialist country, since all the services provided by the state do not need to be paid with taxes, but with production output.
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Well, yes, by definition socialists are trying to take control of production out of the hands of large businesses and into the hands of the workers. That being said, Belgium is a pretty moderate country as far as Europe goes.
Please debate on the merits of the case, not on stereotypes and idealogical generalizations.
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You are confusing communism with socialism, which only shows how effective the dis-information campaign of the "conservatives" has been over the years. Socialism is merely concerned about organizing things in such a way that some basic functions of society take precedence over personal greed. It is quite possible to have small/medium sized private enterprise in
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Now, who started getting antsy and throwing their weight about? The tinpot newspapers, that's who. So it seems fair enough to me - they cried that google linked to them, so if google stop linking to them they can stop with the boo-hoos already. Be careful what you wish for.
Tom is a big fairy (Score:2)
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Are you an idiot, or do you just play one on slashdot?
For the past 10 years or so, why do you ask? :-)
If Google were to delist these Newspapers, that would not be an attack on the Newspapers.
Re-read grandparent, please. His comment was specifically aimed at Google delisting them in revenge. That would be a knee-jerk reaction, but the grandparents argument was that by doing so, Google would "show them". We have a court system to "show it". Google is smart enough to use it (they already announced they'll appeal), grandparent isn't.
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Our society does not have a court system with the intent of it being used by corporation A to get government force on their side to prevent corporation B from doing something which is beneficial to the rest of us.
Correct. The court doesn't care about benefits, it cares about whether or not corporation B is acting illegally.
The argument that a crime for the sake of the public good has been discussed extensively by the ancient greek. It's one of those which can not be objectively concluded, but all legal systems based on the roman code of laws has realized that you can not let people off because their crime benefited someone or even everyone. You might lower his punishment, but not too much.
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It's not Google stopping to buy their newspapers, as per your example. Rather on the contrary - stopping to do that (without paying) was what the case was all about.
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So then why doesn't google subscribe to these same services for the content, rather than piggyback on somebody elses subscription? They certainly have the money to do it.
-dave
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I totally agree! (Score:2)
Of course, it's copyrighted material, even if they don't make a profit. I mean, you are aware that copyright handles the right to copy, and not whether you make a dime of it? For instance, if I was copying a book and gave it away for free, it STILL would be copyright-infringement, and the authors still could sue me.
Therefor, I'm glad to see you are a staunch believer in protecting copyrights. This post you are reading, btw, is also copyrighted. And your
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I would assume that the fines are in euros (wouldn't know, didn't read the article) and $32,600 is about 25000€.
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This seems an unfair question. Suppose a group of robbers is robbing my neighborhood and I find one of them and take them to court. Suppose they say "We have a well-established policy that if you don't want your house robbed, you should leave a note to that effect tacked to your front door." Even supposing they have, in fact, well-advertised this policy, does that make it my fault for not putting up such a note?
robots.txt is an internet protocol issue, and an inform
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Of course, I don't understand what it is about passing age forty that makes so many people apathetic towards new technology and ideas - they're the ones who are largely in control of the direction of the world, and they almost always need to know about the new stuff to do their jobs.
It's just damned retarded.