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French News Agency Sues Google News
n1ywb writes "CNN and others are reporting that 'News agency Agence France Presse has sued Google Inc., alleging the Web search leader includes AFP's photos, news headlines and stories on its news site without permission. The French news service is seeking damages of at least $17.5 million and an order barring Google News from displaying AFP photographs, news headlines or story leads, according to the suit filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.' This means they're suing in America this time, not France, which means Google might actually care if they lose."
Even if they're successful, AFP will be the losers here. Why can't people see that far from stealing their customers, Google drives visitors to their sites? By removing themselves from Google, all AFP will do is reduce their number of visitors, and hence the overall value of their site. This is particularly strange as AFP sells subscription based premium content, which isn't available to the masses anyway. Thus the only parts of the site that Google will be able to index are the loss leaders that they use to try and entice people to subscribe. As a business, I'd have thought you'd want that content to be made available to a wider audience at no extra cost to you...
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
AFP sells subscriptions to its content and does not provide it free. Google News gathers photos and news stories from around the Web and posts them on its news site, which is free to users.
...why didn't they properly lock it down?
If Agence France Presse didn't want people to view their content for free...
It's not like Google's impersonating a paid user account to get the information!
The coolest voice ever.
ROBOT.TXT
Now that Google's a publicly traded company flush with cash, many potential litigants are smelling blood.
Google is both suing and being sued by so many parties now it's hard to keep track, as a search on Google will show.
One of the cases involving images.google.com appears to me to be more of a publicity stunt by the plaintiff.
I think we can expect more such lawsuits.
I'm a big tall mofo.
What Damages? Google doesnt make a cent off Google news. All Google does is provide a blurb and a link, if the user is interested they click the link and go to the originating website. How is that possibly bad?
They've gone after Yahoo, Google (multiple times now), and even taken swings at that incarnation of evil; Project Gutenberg. This has got to be the SCO of nation-states.
see it
one of two, Yahoo! took it legal or France hates google
"Steve Jobs invented the world" -- Bill W. GATES
Why can't they unlist themselves like on the regular Google search engine? If google is forcing their content to be on there, I personally have a problem with that.
They're a press agency, selling content to newspapers, and -- tada -- web sites. Of course they're not happy about google taking what they sell, for free.
Google's indexes the web.
If you have a problem with that, put a robots.txt file on your site. Google even explains how to do that in it's own help pages.
This is all just a publicity stunt.
MSN, Yahoo and Google need to blacklist any company that sues them over something this stupid from ever being returned favorably in their results again. There is no reason that this French company's news should be returned now when any source from the U.S., Canada, Britain, Germany, etc. is availible on the same topic.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Perhaps I am stupid or ignorant, but I still do not get why corporations figure it is bad for them to be promoted by Google and their services. It is not like Google shows the entire article, them linking sites and showing headlines has only one effect: People learn about the sites they show and click the links, meaning the news agency gets more visits and therefore more money. Isn't cutting off your major biggest referrer kind of shooting yourself in the foot?
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
Please note the difference between a "news agency" and a "news site"!
It's not trivial to filter out press reports from a news agency.
News agencies sell their raw-stories to news sites. Google can easily remove a news site from their news index, but excluding some articles from a news agency appearing on various news sites is difficult...
Maybe I've been misled, but when a news agency publishes a story, that story can be used and published by others as long as the source is cited. Google cites all of their sources, links to the original source, and essentially are providing pre-search engine usefulness. They're collecting news that people are interested in or has general appeal and displaying it like they would a search, and there's already numerous laws that state it doesn't violate copyright to index information like that.
More importantly, if this lawsuit goes to court, EVERY online news aggregator would be forced to stop, and it would likely have repercussions for all major news agencies. CNN's stories are only about 1/3 CNN's -- the rest are pulled from other sources, AFAIK. How many times have you read a story somewhere and it says at the top "REUTERS" or "AP WIRE" ?
Ultimately it wouldn't surprise me if Google has this case dismissed under the grounds that Google is not providing the news, rather is simply providing an index of different news sources.
Uh, it's not.
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
Only 15 replies and 5 criticizing France or french people...
Why so much hate ? This story has nothing to do with countries but with companies !
Do we hear 'America sucks' on every Microsoft or SCO story ?
Please, don't mix anything...
Have there been any cases where someone has been able to keep one site from linking to another? I seem to remember someone suing on that basis but I don't remember hearing the verdict.
You'd think France had seen a /. article on SEO's or something, they've now got 3 out of 6 of the news stories that show up when I visit google news...
Go chines...french politicians!
Why is it that everytime someone in France decides to sue Google. If I were google, I would just say shove it, no more business with you France. Toodles...
Continental Europe has a legal code derived from the Napoleonic code.
It is particularly irrational and inflexible, and nowhere near as abstract as English Common Law.
E.g. people in Continental Europe need to carry ID papers with them when in public. Cops can stop you and interrogate you -- because. The law says you are free, but you better carry ID. And watch your mouth (you might break the law).
Thanks Napoleon!
So it is entirely "reasonable", to the mind of a Continental European, that a respectable media company like AFP can sue to stop some upstart from doing something novel and innovative, just because technology allows it -- the law is inherently pro-status quo.
In Germany, a British retailer dared to have a sale. This was deemed illegal -- the state argued (on behalf of the German retailers) that the temporary nature of the sale would COMPEL Germans to buy more stuff. Really it was just that German retailers can't compete with Anglo-retailer Kung Fu, and the state was happy to do their bidding, with the result that the German consumer lost out.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
A completely content free post.
And after the filters, a first post too!
Amazing.
Reading it is like eating cotton candy... at first you think there's something there, then its gone and you realize it never had content in the first place.
Add no sense of humour and in denial about the sins of the past to that list.
Putting aside whether AFP has the right to control who aggregates their content, where and how it is displayed, this is just idiocy.
It's just another chapter in the constant war between the forces who would lock content down, draw users to their sites and than burn down all semantic bridges, against the very nature of the Internet. Connectedness, restructuring and copying information is here to stay. We can cry about companies who are losing money because they are selling information, but that does not mean that anyone can help them at this point. Their current business models are almost dead at this point.
When you attach your web server to the internet, you're letting everyone look at it.
Part of that process is that people will look at it, classify it and judge it.
It inherent in attaching a web server. If you don't like it, the best thing to do is unplug the ethernet cable from your web server, and tell people to dial directly (or through Minitel) to your server, because you feel that putting it on the internet places you in a difficult position.
I don't see how you can have it both ways...they want wide exposure, so they place it in the most public place on the planet, then they complain that it isn't viewed in precisely the way they envisioned.
I really don't understand the beef.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
There was a similar case shortly after the birth of the www. Site "A" sued Site "B" for quoting part of thier website and linking to it if readers wanted to read more. Imagine the horror, one site linking to another.
Anyway, the court decided it was not Copyright infringement because the original source was provided and given full credit, and some other factors.
Nothing to see here
DarkMantle I been bored, so I started a blog.
I concede the legal point about copyright, which is what the whole lawsuit is about. That part of it is pretty cut-and-dried. However, that's not my main concern. One of the points the the article (though not necessarily AFP itself) seems to make is that AFP wants its content to only be able to paying customers. Unless that content is locked down on a technical level, this objective is dead. Several companies, amazingly, still have not realized just how easy the Internet has made the dissemination of information. Heck, even with paid user accounts, it's all too easy for someone to copy, paste, and reproduce, either privately or commercially. Obviously the ease does not justify the act from a legal standpoint, but it nevertheless presents a logistical reality that companies need to take into account when making any sort of information available online.
The coolest voice ever.
The last good thing to come out of France was mayonnaise.
But download all its porn first!
Why is google still doing business in France anyway? With the recent lawsuits the most reasonable option seems to be to blacklist the entire country. Let them use msn and suffer.
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
Yes we do...
Have they tried applying a robots.txt file properly first? Wouldn't it be cheaper?
You can't handle the truth.
Many stores blatantly show the most interesting articles (read: front page) of many newspapers side by side. The stores link to the original provider (read: people can pick up and buy the newspaper). Some insidious pervayors even have the gall to put little metal face plates on their racks of newspapers.
Smaller institutions even purchase their 'content' from unscrupulous 3rd party vendors in some cases.
A certain CNN anchor even reproduces the newspaper content (read: shows the front pages of several newspapers) on television!
It's complete chaos; When will the madness end!
User-agent: * /lawsuit
Disallow:
Significantly, any major story released by the AFP is essentially an OP/ED peice based on a previously released story by either the Associated Press and Reuters. Why haven't either AP or Reuters attempted to fight google for displaying thier images? And why would the AFP mind getting more attention by getting some free advertising? The photos are labeled AFP!
Sounds like a frivilous attempt to get-rich-quick on Google's amazing success which has now reached global recognition, as demonstrated by the AFP's sad endeavor to gain financially over something so unimportant.
Specious logic.
1-The "Robot.txt" file is a universally agreed upon standard in the Internet community.
2-No one can read your mind (outside a lab that is). The "Robot.txt" file is a way to let the rest of the world know what you're thinking.
3-The nature of the internet is commonly known.
4-If all else fails. Some common sense should be applied to the situation. e.g should your social security number be scattered all over the internet.
Whether Google is making money off Google News is likely to be completely relevant. Google will probably try to claim "fair use" is the images and text, and the bounds on non-commercial fair-use are weaker. This is why Google has always kept ads off the news page.
This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.
caveat I'm develop search engines and also worked in a photo agency for some years like AFP.
Bottom line: AFP is right but Google's lack of ads or even full stories on the page should save them.
I just looked at Google News and noticed there is a photo that goes to a story, but there is no photo on the page it links to. The photo must have come from some other news source and the caption "Boston Globe" got pasted below it as a link.
This is maybe good for layout but is contrary to what a photographer would be used to seeing. It probably got them pissed off.
I doubt Google is knowingly copying from AFP. I think they grab any photos they can find. But they will probably find a lot of quality AFP photos. The problem is you don't know who they got it from. And the lack of attribution. That is how AFP makes their money: Copyright control. And guess what? Google uses the work of AFP photographers to make a more visually interesting page for a service that is both free and worth enough money to make an IPO.
Well, this was bound to happen. AFP can probably prove it was an AFP photo, but cannot prove Google copied it from them (and Google likely didn't). It would be useful to include metadata in the photos as to proper credit, url, and policy.
Probably AFP contacted Google, got rebuffed, and then AFP realized that if they don't fight it they will lose control over their online future. Which is true.
But this is really a search engine - you can't actually read the articles there but need to surf elsewhere - and there are no ads, so it can be said that this is a free service.
Anyway it walks a fine line between a search engine and a publication, and the best thing would be if Google could actually sign a contract with Reuters and AFP say, and show large, high quality photos on their site. They could also pay photographers and writers directly which is of course the next step, when Google really goes for the throat. For now it is just a search engine, and Google should be free to make a dynamic layout any way they want, except that it should show accreditation (if in the photo file itself) at least as a mouseover popup label.
I'm not going to guess the outcome, but hope AFP loses badly, otherwise it will be chilling. They ought to be able to demand that Google not index a photo that has an AFP byline embedded in it, but that too is an interpretation we'll have to wait and see about.
Seems like i hear a lot of some French company is suing for this, or the French have banned this, or the French have made a stink over this or that. There is more of Europe right? Or are they asleep? Or (dare i say it) has the rest of Europe managed to not have a huge chip on thier shoulder? i'm not slamming France, just damn, everytime i turn around, they're raising hell about something.
Maybe this isn't a simple issue of publicity or drawing easy cash from Google, but a last attempt to win a juridical last resort against the inevitable death of news agencies?
As the web continues it's march towards becoming the primary news source, and remains free-and-open, news agencies will suffer. Recently, Norway's second largest newspaper Dagbladet opted out of a new contract with the national news agency NTB. Although they did make a deal with ANB, a smaller and cheaper agency, the ratio of articles directly from the agencies seem to fall quite quickly.
And it makes sense. Why pay a lot for content you can receive for free? Journalism in the information world is cheap, because you don't need to travel much to get a good overview. Blogs and online newspapers are much cheaper to make and distribute than paper papers (heh). As journalism and distribution becomes cheaper, the need for agencies diminishes.
So a last resort for the agencies could be making it impossible to aggregate news through portals. They're trying to halt development, to avoid the inevitable, or at least get payed for their inconvenience. I hope they lose, although I'm a little nostalgic on the paper papers behalf too.
Roses are #FF0000, violets are #0000FF, all my base are belong to you
so can Google, they are a billion dollar company making serious cash from other peoples content, Google should just pay AFP and AP etc just like Yahoo and other news sites do
Send feedback to AFP on what you think of this lawsuit here:
:-)
http://www.afp.com/english/afp/?pid=contact
You can always use John Doe's mailing address
Copyright infringement and stealing are totally different things, looks like the WIPO has paid /. people with mod points!
ok some gibberish about napoleon who was frensh, tha somehow translates to 'continental' europe, and then something about it arch-rival Germany. This all should prove that the frensh are what exactly?
I suspect some non-continental european is doing some trolling.
And Napolean on was a warmongering dictator, but also a very good statesman that left a very valuable legal legacy behind. And He learnd us to ride on the right side of the road!
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
So they don't want anyone to find them or their website. OOOOOKKKKKkkkkk. Right.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
12345
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Let me see if get this right.
Google, despite what it is, doesn't exactly go around ripping all the web pages off the internet just because it could. Even now, it still does so by invitation.
AFP has requested google to do so. I'm not sure how google determines what to include and what not to include, but does it not have something to do with metatags? For whatever reason, google cached some pages, they never did want/now they don't want cached.
Now AFP is all in a snit that google has cached content they at least now have determined they don't want cached and they now seek damages.
In anotherwise sane world, would it not simply have been better off to send a cease and desist letter to google saying "THIS IS OFF BOUNDS", and failure to comply, *THEN* sue?
As others posted already, isn't this just a ploy to get an easy 17.5 mil cash grab? They're going straight for the throat, so I'm thinking, "What is your malfunction?????"
It seems SCO is the posterchild of this kind of questionable lawsuit practice in the world today. "OH, WE'VE BEEN WRONGED!!!! QUICK SUE".
Could it be the death of civility is the direct cause of the death of common sense??
Yahoo's AFP news site:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=index2&cid=1504
You avoid the litigation issue of foreign countries at any rate.
Legally speaking, yes you do, at least in America. Courts has struggled with the question of giving notice by publication, and have eventually come up with the standard of "reasonably calculated to give actual notice, and only in cases where individual notice is impossible or unduly burdensome."
An English language notice is not reasonably calculated to give actual notice, unless they really think there are 50,000 old ladies at Google reading each indexed link. And individual notice would have been easy. Just call Google (if you are too lazy, greedy, or stupid to actually fix the "problem").
You're also going to get into issues with promissory estoppel here. This is the equivalent of having a book of "free," but copyrighted, cover sheet designs from your local copier and waiting for the litigo-terrorism hilarity to ensue.
Sorry for the language, but as a big fan of the law I get pretty peeved when people try to twist a technicality into making the law a sword rather than a shield.
adam b.
sucks !
A bunch of stupid ass holes.
and yes, I'm french
Votez ecolo : Chiez dans l'urne !
Yahoo news is a news site, google news only indexes other news sites.
Could this be fixed by ISPs putting in their TOS that you are not allowed to make any content available on the net unless you are willing to have it freely copied with a minimum of a copyleft license?
Would this work? If not, why not? If not, could it be made to work after a simple tweak?
all the best,
drew
http://www.peercast.org/
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
I missed that one. Who went after PG and when? This sounds too interesting to just let slip by.
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
They're suing Google for $17.5 mil, but how much more have they made since Google has been linking to them?
No mention of the robots instruction file for indexing int he article. Did the French agency bother to tell google what they could or could not index, or are they sueing google because they don't know how to configure their own site?
Everyone should just sue everyone else. Sure, that will solve all our problems. Google news POINTS to images that are already readily available to anyone with an internet connection... there is nothing wrong with that... if it is already readily available and google just points to it and points it out for you and says "look at this thing that is out there somewhere"... there should be no issues here.
So...if they didn't like it, they could have opted out...
1). Google isn't duplicating anything except headlines. That likely comes under fair use. 2) Because they KNEW they could easily keep google from doing that using robots.txt and NEVER sent a C&D, it's going to be really hard to get damages. They might get be able to get google to stop doing it - and I doubt even that - but the chances for damages is low, since they knew they could stop the so-called damage at any time.
Also, how does this hurt them? It will be hard to claim that when google drives people to their site and increases their revenue. Ultimately, if AFP wants to isolate themselves from the world, go right ahead.
In other words, they aren't really a business the way the other news agencies are. You don't see Reuters out there suing Google, and for good reason.
Since it's on Google News..
link
Internet search is useless without content. Any monkey with enough machines and bots running could be a search provider. Google is exploiting companies who produce content for ad-word advertising revenue. The other parties should be compensated. It only makes sense. Google is nothing without content. The free ride is over.
Hey I see you post here too. Great. Anyway the answer has to do with nature and intent. It has always been the intent of the internet (HTTP) for a universal connection. Sort of a default "opt-in". E-Mail however is a point to point communications medium, which while standards mean that any sutiable client can read it? The intent is still an "at will" default condition.
http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article.php/3
the company requested the removal of RSS-powered Google News headlines from his Ecademy business networking site and made it clear Webmasters are not allowed to display headlines from Google News on third-party sites.
oh the irony
Mod parent up.
The country is clearly run by madmen with no grasp of reality
sorry are we talking about USA now ?
Doesn't the AFP get ad revenue every time someone visits their site? Aren't they... you know, getting money? that they didn't have to work for? Huh, I could use a few extra bucks. Looks like it's time to sue google.
Does this have any implications to sites which aggregate news through RSS sources? Just a question.
anymore than Reuters or Associated press do
they are in the buisness of selling content and employing reporters to create the content
but hey this is the google fan club, they can do no wrong here, but imagine the comments if MS did this
Fuck France and Fuck The French Government! Let 'em rot in hell the next time they need help. All they want to do is whine about shit, ask for people to die for them so they can then say later that they "do not support non-diplomatic" solutions to problems. Fuck 'em!
ardustry
ardustry
Newspapers, radio and tv, aren't likely to appreciate direct competiton from a press service they help subsidize.
Question: What does a service provider have to do in order to qualify for safe harbor protection?
Answer: In addition to informing its customers of its policies (discussed above), a service provider must follow the proper notice and takedown procedures (discussed above) and also meet several other requirements in order to qualify for exemption under the safe harbor provisions.
In order to facilitate the notification process in cases of infringement, ISPs which allow users to store information on their networks, such as a web hosting service, must designate an agent that will receive the notices from copyright owners that its network contains material which infringes their intellectual property rights. The service provider must then notify the Copyright Office of the agent's name and address and make that information publicly available on its web site. [512(c)(2)]
Finally, the service provider must not have knowledge that the material or activity is infringing or of the fact that the infringing material exists on its network. [512(c)(1)(A)], [512(d)(1)(A)]. If it does discover such material before being contacted by the copyright owners, it is instructed to remove, or disable access to, the material itself. [512(c)(1)(A)(iii)], [512(d)(1)(C)]. The service provider must not gain any financial benefit that is attributable to the infringing material. [512(c)(1)(B)], [512(d)(2)].
[back to notice text]
Question: What is copyright infringement? Are there any defenses?
Answer: Infringement occurs whenever someone who is not the copyright holder (or a licensee of the copyright holder) exercises one of the exclusive rights listed above.
The most common defense to an infringement claim is "fair use," a doctrine that allows people to use copyrighted material without permission in certain situations, such as quotations in a book review. To evaluate fair use of copyrighted material, the courts consider four factors:
(17 U.S.C. 107)
The most significant factor in this analysis is the fourth, effect on the market. If a copier's use supplants demand for the original work, then it will be very difficult for him or her to claim fair use. On the other hand, if the use does not compete with the original, for example because it is a parody, criticism, or news report, it is more likely to be permitted as "fair use."
Trademarks are generally subject to fair use in two situations: First, advertisers and other speakers are allowed to use a competitor's trademark when referring to that competitor's product ("nominative use"). Second, the law protects "fair comment," for instance, in parody.
[back to notice text]
Question: What are the DMCA Safe Harbor Provisions?
Answer: In 1998, Congress passed the On-Line Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA) in an effort to protect service providers on the Internet from liability for the activities of its users. Codified as section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), this new law exempts on-line service providers that meet the criteria set forth in the safe harbor provisions from claims of copyright infringement made against them that result from the conduct of their customers. These safe harbor provisions are designed to shelter service providers from the infringing activities of their customers. If a service provider qualifies
... everybody would agree with AFP. Google still has the good role in a bad game. Stealing content from content owner is acceptable if you are not making money off it, but Google is a commercial enterprise, making money off content by selling ads.
so any attempt at logic and truth will be met with hostility and distain (much like the neocons)
guess who is who
1) Billion dollar public company makes money from advertising while displaying licensed content on its web properties with permission
2) Billion dollar public company makes money from advertising while displaying licensed content on its web properties without permission
an old issue regarding the "French Military Victories" google results.
appended to the end of comments you post, 120 bit floating point
right here, but google ignored them (if you RTFA)
I'm not sure the value of news agencies has anything to do with the medium in which news is delivered. As long as people desire news, news agencies will be useful. Google certainly seems to find AFP useful, and so do lots of other news sites.
There is a big debate going on (fueled by Apple supposedly sueing bloggers) over whether bloggers can be good journalists, much less news agencies. Almost all blogs I've seen are very high on opinion, and somewhat lower on facts and investigation. Uninformed opinion a news agency does not make.
There is an interesting parallel with OSS of course, and OSS
As with OSS, there also remains the question of how the free beer model pays for college (where you learn programming and journalism) and a family.
Lies about crimes
Are some of you talking here about business or politics? I never thought that when a French company sues an American company (or vice and versa) "we the people", our governments, were involved in this?
Redundant?! I was the 3rd post on this topic. Jeez.
The internet is not a library. The internet is not a broadcast. The internet is not a painting.
Somebody needs to sit these AFP fruitbags down and explain to them what a hyperlink is.
L'hyperlien:
Une image ou une partie de texte sur une Page Web qui est liée à une autre Page Web, sur le même emplacement ou dans un autre emplacement de Web.
You can't tell me this isn't true...
- AMW
There should be an extra tag
[noindex]....... [/noindex]
So that *parts* of a page can be excluded from indexing.
AFP could then put that in their story text it gives to other sites.
I hope I'm not representative of the masses, but I am usually too busy to look at the article.. (Slashdot included..).
I go to google to see the blurb / synopsis, and move on. I never hit the original site. Sure, I'm a l0s3r. But, in my case, Google is definately giving me something something from AFP that I never would get from them in the first place.
I guess the courts will decide if that is a crime or not.
... This is so SCO it's not even funny.
Very good. Worth a sig.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
AFP is not a web site. AFP was/is a wire service, just like AP, Reuters, etc. It really isn't in the retail news sales business. In effect, it wholesales its products to retail news outlets like newspapers, radio/TV stations, etc. Those purchasers are well aware of AFP's existence and don't need Google to remind them. So far as I know, AFP's products aren't priced for individual use, and it doesn't host any subscription-based intended for individual consumers.
In other words, there aren't any AFP sites for Google to drive customers to.
If Google is indexing AFP content on sites that pay for it, then perhaps AFP has a problem with those sites, not Google.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Seriously, this is getting ridiculous.
.fr websites and would not do searches for IP addresses coming from France.
If I was Google, I would stop searching
That's the only way Google can safely protect itself from being sued by everybody and their French mothers.
The french queue to sue googles h/article_1000953.shtml
http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publi
Fair use does not encompass reproduction and distribution of the entirety of a work.
If Google News is indexing and presenting content on publicly accessible web sites, I don't think they've got much to worry about. If they are indexing content on sites that aren't publicly accessible -- intended for access by paying customers only -- and have not entered into an agreement with that source to access and index the content, that's another story, as well as an issue for that site's security guy.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
The French only work 35 hours a weeks. Google is a nice source of extra cash:s h/article_1000953.shtml
http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publi
They are French lawyers. They smell cheese.
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
Fine, they want to start a war? Let's boycott french products again, france will lose more than $17.5M this way, before they surrender.
Even Google is not above the law.
Where are the internet laws perchance?
Can we go back to no one really using the web except geeks? The only advances by having the rest of the net on are more e-commerce and those funny forum images like the bunny with a pancake on it's head.
I can live without that.
http://use.perl.org
Reminds me of one of my favorite movie quotes:
"Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever." -Baron Munchausen
The French re getting sue happy too? It's all over man, game over-game over!
As predicted - http://www.broom.org/epic/ols-master.html
It would be perfectly reasonable for any third-party site, even one Linus strongly dislikes, to provide links to kernel.org with the names and descriptions of kernels hosted there.
The question is not whether all information ought to be completely unrestricted; that's a straw man.
Toulouse is French.
....what they do is illegal as well then. Their reporters take pictures and don't bother to secure copyright licenses from whomever got photographed, or for reproduced images of the buildings in the background, etc, in many cases, same as all other news businesses. They quote people and don't secure the copyright license to that persons "speech", their "creation". What's really the big difference? This is how news is done, google puts up pages on the "news", with links and a very short intro to the story quoted, as if the news itself was a "news story". Near as I can tell it is 100% fair use. I expect the court to dismiss the claims. I think AFP is just trying to shakedown google to purchase content, like they sell to online and print guys and broadcasters. Now if Google reproduced the entire thing and called it it's own, that would be a different story, they should pay for it, but it's not, so it isn't, and they therefore don't.
At most they are printing 3 sentences or so from news articles with appropriate credit (and link) and in the context of a news summary. This strikes me has completely within "Fair Use" under current copyright law. If by some chance it isn't it sure the heck should be!
In regard to the small thumbnails of images existing court rulings have already established this as legal in the U.S. In the context of a search summary the way Google is using them is clearly legally acceptable.
Like they've never heard of the robots.txt file?
Geeze!
Perhaps a "robots.please.txt" is needed to opt-in?
That is a really great analogy. What a clever refutation of what I wrote. Keep up the good work!
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
But inst robots.txt only about being polite and not an actual binding contract?
If its been published publically, then they dont have much of a leg to stand on, as long as they get the credit for the 'source'. "fair use"
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The attitude of "F**k 'Em" is a little over the top, but the US companies effected by the frivolous, unwarranted lawsuits should actively seek to ban French users and block indexing of all french sites. Imagine all the French folks who depend on Google to promote their sites, or to augment their income with Adsense. Chances are they would be pretty ticked, and hopefully would blame their elitist self rightous government.
I have no personal gripes against French people. I have several French friends. However, it sure seems lately like there are a few bad apples that typify the Anti-USA crowd. I almost get the feeling that they are purposely trying to be anti-USA/anti-British so they can get a competive advantage with the anti-west world. These lawsuits seem politically motivated and another way to "stick it to the US".
I honestly wonder if terrorists flew a 747 into the Eiffel tower if France would be so anti-war/anti-US? I sincerely doubt it.
Anyway, if I was Google I'd simply block indexing on any site hosted in France. I'd also block access to any IP orginating in France. As far as the internet stuff goes France seems a bit overzealous as far as sueing high-profile American companies.
-MS2k
... impresses nobody. Neither here nor on your so-called-consulting site.
:-D
Signed by: a software developer who worked with you, who knows you, and who is sure by personal experience that YOU SUCK both at development and at keeping your girlfriend faithful.
( develish laugh in the background )
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
I agree that google should give them exactly what they demand... in abundance.
The idea that any major corporation in a nation with peculiar laws should be permitted to in effect, censor the content of the rest of us doesn't deserve support.
Perhaps it's time for google.fr to replace its eearch page with a single page with no search box... saying "We will do business in France when your nation adopts laws compatible with technological civilization. If this is a problem for you, contact (insert home phone numbers for the President and the most powerful elected public officials in the French government.)
While Google has devolved from it's "do no evil" PR statement (try reporting a Usenet spammer empowered by Google to them... YOU try it, they don't really give a shit... if you want to post MAKE MONEY FAST, use googlegroups)... choosing up sides in a situation like this isn't hard at all.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Now that Google's a publicly traded company flush with cash, many potential litigants are smelling blood.
In this case it's not like they just sprung it on them out of nowhere. They asked Google to remove them, Google refused for some reason.
it took me at least 20 minutes to realize the irony that i first heard about this ON Google News. i'm living in Japan now and that's just how much i've been relying on Google News... it's not even Google News anymore.. to me it's just 'the news site'... ech.
Jingoistic enough for ya pinko mods?
Sometimes at night I imagine the darkness is filled with horrible things with too many teeth, like Julia Roberts.
Their search engine isn't representative of the true content of the web, it's a paid service first and foremost. Yahoo is more in the spirit of the WWW in that you can get to the top of a search list by just having the right words in your page properties. Googles has people thinking you have to pay for everything.
Screw those guys!
YAHOOOO!!!!
Did you learn your history from Groundskeeper Willie?
I am aware of the fact the Chirac was one hell of a lot closer to the truth about Iraq prewar than our own intelligence brief who now claims that the righteousness of going to war is to be judged only by the ends, and he claims that he is justified by a Shia run government, looking to institute Sharia, and the liar/neocon/embezzler/IranianAgent Chalabi has magically reappeared. Way to go Bush!
and here all this time i thought it was lefties who were ends testers. If we take a shortcut through the water treatment plant in order to win, we are still covered in sh**.
Methods matter,
if there is to be honour that remains.
Since Google is indirectly making money by copyright infringement:
e r_ type=user&contact_type=other_user&submit=Continue
http://www.google.com/support/bin/request.py?us
(lameness filter altert)
A great many europeans say that about americans as well, so be happy that just not liking someone doesn't always result in a nuke being thrown ;-) Earth would be a very lonely place then...
I have nothing against americans. Some of my best friends are americans. I even grew up in america, where I learned that saying 'why, some of my best friends are black' is a good way of identifying a racist. Its not important who your friends are, but only the fact that you need to classify them.
I do have a foot in two worlds because I did grow up in America, but am in fact Dutch. One thing that irritates me to no end is people in any country pointing to another country and generalizing about them (a favorite phrase here is 'american conditions' which is usualy used by people who have no idea what american conditions are).
Also, lets not go the route of how evil the french are, because, lets face it, the US doesn't do to well on human rights issues these days. In fact, as I understand it, the founding fathers of america would probably start a new revolution if they were around to see the mess people have made of their ideals (which, admittedly would be 200 years out of date now).
However, it is true that Americans on average tend to believe that America is the best in everything, and anyone who says otherwise is evil, fascist, communist, terrorist....(the french have similar tendencies, and the dutch are arrogant in their humility, and the british....).
Let's not forget that france was (one of?) the first country to recognize the US as a country. That little statue in New York isn't a local product. Fact is France and the US are big friends and occasional disagreements in poplicy/ideology shouldn't be blown out of proportion. That's why they are diffrent countries.
Getting back to the technical(economic?) discussion, blocking france because some j*rk*ffs are irritating is a brilliant idea which I support whole heartedly. BTW, I'm thinking of investing in in ipo's, could you please tell me which one's block france so that I can avoid those?
AFP complained that Google was wilfully infringing its copyright by reposting AFP's headlines, lead paragraphs and photos without proper credit on its Google News service. not enough 'proper credit'?? i can't check it, because google has already eliminated all afp news from their site, but usually google news provides a link to the source website. isn't that enough proper credit?