Google News ordered to remove content.

[Rockefeller]

Story

Google Inc. lost a copyright lawsuit Tuesday to Belgian newspapers that had demanded it remove headlines and links to news stories posted without their permission. The ruling, if confirmed, could set a precedent for how Web search engines link to copyrighted material in the tumultuous arena of online news.

The company behind the world's most-used search engine immediately said it would appeal, claiming its Google News service was "entirely legal" and the Belgian decision was a one-time result that would not be repeated elsewhere.

The Brussels Court of First Instance ruled that California-based Google could not call on exemptions, such as claiming "fair use" because it says it reviews press articles when it displays headlines, a few lines of text, photos and links to the original page.

 

[olebean]

Good news!

They dont have permission to store copyrighted data

 

[BELLC1]

Good thing those two guys got their millions last week...just in case.

 

[Gerry]

Another blow to google. Just read a report where they did not win the ruling for the lawsuit to obtain the Gmail trademark.

 

[Seraphim]

Strange... you would think that if the news links were in a position to cause such concern, there would also be an equally large chunk of referrals coming into the site from G. Perhaps I'm missing something?

 

[Sarcle]

Am I missing something but why wouldn't you want traffic to your news stories no matter where it comes from? As long as they are giving the link to the original news source and bringing them visitors why would they complain about that? It's free advertising.

 

[Gerry]

By the way, not to infringe on your thread Rock but this is the link to losing the Gmail trademark dispute in case it had not been posted elsewhere.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/31/google_looses_trademark_battle/

Am I missing something but why wouldn't you want traffic to your news stories no matter where it comes from? As long as they are giving the link to the original news source and bringing them visitors why would they complain about that? It's free advertising.

I agree and why stop at just google? AOL, MSN, Yahoo search engines all next?

 

[BostonDomainer]

See, I think the Belgium company is the one at a lost here. Can you imagine the amount of traffic Google must send to them? In my opinion Google will probably NOT pay to use there content and the Bel. Comp will lose the traffic... not a good lawsuit in my opinion. This is one win that's a worthless lost!

 

[Sarcle]

I agree and why stop at just google? AOL, MSN, Yahoo search engines all next?

And last time I checked you can make your site non-spiderable if you don't want the search engines to pick it up. But isn't that the point of news anyways? To get it out to the public? Sounds like they just want to make a little cash from google.

 

[Gerry]

And last time I checked you can make your site non-spiderable if you don't want the search engines to pick it up. But isn't that the point of news anyways? To get it out to the public? Sounds like they just want to make a little cash from google.

Perhaps they do view Google as a cash cow. Not sure what the motivation is with the Belgian court rulings. Brussels is also home to NATO headquarters which includes many EU nations. So, does the rest of the world rely solely on the Belgian press to report the news regarding anything NATO related?

 

[Dave Zan]

Next thing you know, they're going to sue google for not showing their sites in
their search results.

 

[GAMEFINEST]

newspaper company is an idiot

 

[Focus]

ohhh these crazy kids..