Google News Found Guilty of Copyright Violation

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

[Bazman (4849)]

So is this where 'Belgium!' becomes the most obscene word in the cosmos?

News aggregates illegal in belgium?

[Steeltoe (98226)]

Im surprised at this ruling. It seems RSS / Atom-feeds has just been made illegal in belgium, or am I missing something?

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

What's good for the goose...

[Xonstantine (947614)]

Maybe Google should just delink the sites altogether, that way the offended media organizations can watch their traffic plummet to zero?

Re:

[malsdavis (542216)]

I don't some of the top newspapers in Belgium will see their traffic "plummet to zero" because their not listed on google.

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...

[GryMor (88799)]

No, but I've seen a lot of users go to www.cnn.com by means of entering www.cnn.com in google's search box.

Re:What's good for the goose...

[Daemonstar (84116)]

I know that my mom and wife both use Google as their "address bar". My wife wanted to go somewhere the other day (she had to use my Linux box; I playing around with Vista on the Windows one), and I told her to just type the address in the address bar (it was like JcPenney's or something). She said, "I don't want to type it in the address bar, I just want to type it in Google." Google is the default page on my Win PC. My mom does the same thing; she never uses the address bar. She usually asks, "How do I do that?" when I tell her to just type it in.

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...

[malsdavis (542216)]

This would work both ways though. People only use Google as their address bar because they are pretty certain the website will come up. National newspapers and other mainstream media websites are normally some of the highest traffic websites (in terms of unique hits) on the internet for any specific country, therefor by not linking to the media websites Google would also be doing themselves quite a lot of harm.

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!

Re:

[walt-sjc (145127)]

I therefore doubt Google will consider de-listing mainstream newspaper websites. It would give Google an immense commercial disadvantage to their rivals!

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

Re:

[malsdavis (542216)]

When I said about a commercial disadvantage I meant towards other search engines, portals and start pages; not News Aggregation websites.

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

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

I know I haven't and I bet it is quite rare that people discover their sites that way.

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

Re:

[Hognoxious (631665)]

I don't some of the top newspapers in Belgium will see their traffic "plummet to zero" because their not listed on google.

If that an example of how their wrote, I'm surpressed the have any traffic too start with.

Re:What's good for the goose...

[Bill Dimm (463823)]

Maybe Google should just delink the sites altogether, that way the offended media organizations can watch their traffic plummet to zero?

From the article:

Google carries advertising on its general Belgian site, Google.be, but not in its news index. Links to the publications represented by Copiepresse have already been removed from both.

Re:

[Greyfox (87712)]

Redirect be.google.com to lycos.com in their dns. There are just going to be some countries that they can't do business in and I'm sure the citizens of those countries will be just as happy to use some other search engine.

Re:

[walt-sjc (145127)]

Lycos will end up getting sued too - it's not just google. Google is just the largest target at the moment.

Fair use vs. copy of?

[xxxJonBoyxxx (565205)]

I'm not sure how much aggregation Google news does, but I'd think if they're copying in less than 10% or so of the story and providing a link to the original they'd be safely in the "fair use" arena.

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?

[Tony Hoyle (11698)]

Fair use is a US concept. The 10% if it exists is probably a US thing as well. In the UK it's 5%, and only a single article. In belgium it's probably something different.

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?

Re:

[kripkenstein (913150)]

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?

For control. The sense of losing control scares them so much, they instinctively react. They figure that once they have everything in hand, they can then arrive at whatever arrangements they want (possibly similar ones to the status quo until a few days ago).

Re:

[Tom (822)]

but I'd think if they're copying in less than 10% or so of t

*beep* comprehension error. Please re-read article. Please note especially the word "Belgium". Please repeat the states of the USA and check if "Belgium" is on that list. If not, remove reference to USA copyright law from argument before continuing.

The exponents hurt my brain

[Shard013 (530636)]

Slashdot said $1250/day yesterday and $32,600/day today. Will hate to see how much they loose a day for copyright violations in about a week!

Re:

[emag (4640)]

The $1295/day yesterday is for ongoing fines, the $32,600/day is apparently retroactive fines, according to the article linked in yesterday's story. Said story also mentions an ealier judgement had the retroactive fines at $1,300,000/day...

MY new business model

[aepervius (535155)]

1) make any sort of "news alike" copyrighted content. Does not matter quality as long as there is quantity.
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

[by Anonymous Coward]

slashdot: Belgium
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

[loconet (415875)]

"Belgium is NOT famous for good food. Trust me on this one"

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

[TinBromide (921574)]

Sounds like they're biting the hand that feeds them. There was a rush of articles a while back where web analysts were blaming google for being a sort of web vampire/leech, sucking the blood out of websites without providing anything back. Those claims have quited because businesses realized that when they changed their model to accommodate the search centric interweb, times were good.

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.

[nurb432 (527695)]

Are going to destroy the world as we know it. ( well, that and the lawyers ).

Its more insidious then any terrorist group, or rouge nation.

Re:

[Pantero Blanco (792776)]

[IP Rights] Are going to destroy the world as we know it. ( well, that and the lawyers ).

Its more insidious then any terrorist group, or rouge nation.

Well, "rouge" [google.com] states [wikipedia.org] do tend to be more obsessed with IP rights.

Lawyers, unfortunately, are pretty much omnipresent.

Re:

[trudyscousin (258684)]

"Its more insidious then any terrorist group, or rouge nation."

Even the mauve, taupe, and paisley ones?

Re:

[Hognoxious (631665)]

Even the mauve, taupe, and paisley ones?

Paisley's a pattern, not a colour, but you could argue that it's synonymous with ORANGE!!! [wikipedia.org].

Re:

[Omnifarious (11933)]

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?

reminds me of France and iTunes

[gravesb (967413)]

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. Once companies get to be a certain size, its really difficult for countries to control them, especially when the controls will end up hurting their corporate citizens, as in this case. When Google stops linking to their newpapers, the newspapers will feel the pain, not Google. Especially since all of Google's competitors will have to play by the same rules, and can't provide unique content. If the governments were right in these cases, and could take the moral highground, then they might stand a chance of winning. However, by continuing to fight huge tech companies in these areas, where they can't win, they stand to lose the power to fight when it really matters. Also, in each case, there were other ways of dealing with the problem. Don't like MS bundling? Move the government to Linux, save money, and encourage your population to do the same. Don't like iTunes and the way Fairplay is locked down? Start a competitor, or encourage the labels to stop their love affair with DRM. Don't like Google lnking to news stories? Update your robot.txt to prevent cache's and Google indexing your site to begin with. Of course, they know they can't do that. They want to come up on Google searches, but not have Google index their content as well. Would you like to have that cake you just ate, anyone?

Re:

[Tom (822)]

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.

Re:

[gravesb (967413)]

No, but they completely ignored the intent of the court's ruling, then embarressed the EU by showing consumers didn't buy any of the unbundled Windows. So who really won the real victory?

Would it have killed you...

[jpellino (202698)]

.. to title this story "Brussels Sprouts Stink"

robots.txt

[GuyverDH (232921)]

If they don't want to be scanned by google, create the file.
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.

Time to tighten the belt

[sd_diamond (839492)]

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.

Re:Saw This Yesterday

[blowdart (31458)]

The submitter tried to search for the story using google but couldn't find it.

Re:

[Constantine XVI (880691)]

You must be new here

Re:

[compro01 (777531)]

that one was about google cache infringing on copyright. this one is about google news infringing on copyright.

so yes, multiple court cases.

Re:Saw This Yesterday

[Incoherent07 (695470)]

No, they're the same case. The original article:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM .20070213.w2belggoogle0213/BNStory/Business/home [theglobeandmail.com]

This article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/14/business/14googl e.html?_r=2&ref=business&oref=slogin&oref=slogin [nytimes.com]

Notice they both talk about Google News and a group of French newspapers.

Re:Saw This Yesterday

[acroyear (5882)]

google should have no qualms about just dropping those sites from ALL of its search engines (make them feel the crunch THAT way) to deal with it.

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.

Re:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[Tom (822)]

Belgium isn't a socialist country. I'll refrain from the usual anti-american comments, though they've rarely been more adequate.

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.

Re:

[Hognoxious (631665)]

Belgium isn't a socialist country.

If wikipedia says so it must be true. However I actually live there, and I'll tell you it has 1) very high taxation 2) bureacracy everywhere and 3) a huge public sector that mostly does sod all, most of which would be associated more with socialism than capitalism. I'll concede there's a fair dose of corporatism thrown in the mix too.

The presence of a monarch and/or prime minister makes no difference at all in practice.

Re:

[Tom (822)]

You live in Belgium, excellent.
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

Re:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[rossifer (581396)]

Um, Socialism has a whole spectrum of definitions. France and Sweden call themselves socialist, aren't too hard for a Belgian to visit, and are very similar in practice to what the gp described (high taxes, large public sector, etc.). Also, I don't know why Russia, Poland, Romania, or the now historical East Germany would have been called socialist in the past. They went right past socialist and straight to dysfunctional communism.

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

Re:

[bogjobber (880402)]

Do socialist countries just hate big business?

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.

Re:

[IgnoramusMaximus (692000)]

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.

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

Re:

[Hognoxious (631665)]

So in other words, you think it's ok to use force in order to make a point

Yes, and he eats babies too, lightly smoked over a smouldering strawman.

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.

Re:

[smartr (1035324)]

Automatic machine processes don't obey copyright law. Is your browser violating copyright law? Is each of the servers passing all the information between you and the content provider, copying the information without permission? Could Belgium sue AT&T? It seems pretty clear AT&T is distributing their information without permission for profit.

Re:

[manual_overide (134872)]

what have they created? most of the news places that google links to are just repeaters for reuters and ap stories anyway. they are just pissed because people are reading their ap feed on google's site, thereby NOT clicking on their ads.

Re:

[planetmn (724378)]

most of the news places that google links to are just repeaters for reuters and ap stories anyway

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