Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
However, the CNN article does state that AFP asked to be removed from Google News and that Google did not remove them, thus the lawsuit.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
AFP is like the AP and Reuters in that they are a News Agency, not a news outlet. They primarily sell their content to other outlets, such as CNN. Having individuals directly read their content is simply not important.
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.
I think you got that wrong. AFP doesn't have a "news site" to speak of. AFP licenses its stuff to OTHER news sites, but keeps the copyright. Google links to site X. This is advantageous to site X, we agree, but AFP gets to decide whether it's advantageous to THEM as they own the copyright.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
If you read the robots.txt file, you'll see they block english/news, but the headlines, and part of the story leads (which the news agency is sueing them for displaying) are presented on their main page, above the english/news subdirectories. They didn't disallow search engines to crawl that main page in the robots.txt file, therefore it is fair game. The images might be questionable, but most of the suit looks like garbage.
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.
Yeah, 2 line robots.txt and they're done. Sounds a bit cheaper than going to court.
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
Because they can't; AFP doesn't own (all) the servers Google is taking AFP content from.
AFP provides content to newspapers; the newspapers that buy the content are happy to allow Google to scrape content from their entire sites because that drives pageviews. The result is that AFP content licensed by newspapers winds up on Google News, even though AFP did not allow Google direct access to AFP content.
No, wait, you don't understand what AFP is: it is a news provider, like Reuters, they don't really care if people go to their website or not, it is completely marginal in their business. Their job is to sell news (pictures / text) to other media (newspapers, radios, websites etc), which can then use it directly (reprint it) or use it as a basis for more complete, analytical articles.
So AFP does not really care how much coverage their content gets for free, in fact it is threatening as it "devaluates" the content: now anybody (and more importantly, any media) can have access to most of AFP's content minutes after it is broadcast, without paying for the (probably huge) monthly bill newspapers pay to AFP. (medias pay to get the right to access to AFP's network, through specific software and servers).
The fact is that Google is indexing and displaying that content without paying for it. But Google can (rightfully) argue that they are only indexing other websites (ie the newspapers who have paid for AFP content and displaying it as is on their own websites), and that therefore they're not violating any copyright law. But in the eyes of AFP, Google is using their content in an original form, displaying it on their own website, with their own layout.
So both companies have mostly valid arguments.
Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
Actually, Yahoo! does have a contract with AFP. It pays to have that content there.
RTFM:
"Without AFP's authorization, defendant is continuously and willfully reproducing and publicly displaying AFP's photographs, headlines and story leads on its Google News web pages," AFP charged in its lawsuit.
AFP said it has informed Google that it is not authorized to use AFP's copyrighted material as it does and has asked Google to cease and desist from infringing its copyrighted work.
AFP alleged that Google has ignored such requests and as of the filing date of the lawsuit "continues in an unabated manner to violate AFP's copyrights."
So Google was asked not to do this and they did it.
I think it is a fair reason to sue.
You can't handle the truth.
"Continental Europe has a legal code derived from the Napoleonic code."
So do parts of North America, what's your point? On this side of the pond, it's not the national government that sets the standard for who's flavor of common law a state or province uses.
And while we're on the subject, the Napoleonic Code (nor English Common Law) have any sway on constitutional, criminal or civil law in any meaningful way. That level of law gets trumped by anything, especially laws passed by the legislature, and is only referenced in cases where neither the legislature or even the courts have yet to rule one way or another in a particular matter.
"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)."
Yes, that's why Louisiana and Quebec are such police states...
The behavior of the police has next to nothing to do with Napoleonic Code/Common Law and has everything to do with constitutional and criminal law.
"doing something novel and innovative,"
You work for Microsoft, don't you?
"the state argued (on behalf of the German retailers) that the temporary nature of the sale would COMPEL Germans to buy more stuff."
Nice links you got there. Since Germany is something of a federal republic, can you at least name the state this supposed suit took place in?
Even experienced lawyers do have trouble reading copyright notices, EULAs and similar crap.
The established and official practice is to put the machine-readable "copyright" into robots.txt.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
I found their robots.txt file:
/beta /francais/news /english/news
User-Agent: *
Disallow:
Disallow:
Disallow:
Now... was this present before or after the lawsuit started, and is google news the same as normal indexing?
Google uses other AFP articles from other news sites which have paid AFP to use the articles and images.
And as you might have guessed, AFP has no access to these robots.txt files...
Apple is suing the freetype project, according to slashdot.
Complete myth. See the Freetype patent FAQ. Scroll down to the bottom.
Yes, slashdot reported on this hoax, but actually corrected the story, in their usual wavering manner.
Even if it were true, would you say that the Freetype Project was composed primarily of Apple users and fans?
It's a good thing you posted as AC, so the world doesn't realize what a dumbshit you are. Oh, wait. You might not realize it, but odds are that most people around you already know this about you.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
It'd help if you'd actually use the guidelines specified for valuing if a work is covered under fair use.
Quotes from US Code Title 17, 107:
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include
So, right away Google seems cleared. But, lets make it more clear since something like blatant plagiarism of a whole news paper would likely not be protected.
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
Contrary to your claim, Google News isn't commercial. Your logic that a non-profit action attracts attention/money isn't relevant. By your logic no celebrity would have access to fair use since their non-profit statements would attract attention to them and conceivably make more money. The test is for if the work itself is commercial. Google News doesn't make money.
Second, Google News is for providing access to news. To claim news is uneducational in general is to ignore what news is. Now, if Google News started quoting from press releases by companies or one of the Government produced "news" releases, you'd have a much stronger argument. Such is propaganda and propaganda is not educational except in the general case that knowing what to look for it in propaganda.
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
The original was news as well.
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
Only the first paragraph is copied, normally, as well as a blurb picture. That's a relatively small part of most reports.
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
This is the real crux that I think exhaunerates Google. Just like Slashdot or fark, Google News redirects to pages in a way that if anything *increases* the market for the work. It's unlikely I'd ever even see a fraction of the news papers listed on Google News if it weren't for Google. Google News doesn't replace all these news sites. It's a nexus for finding them.
The funniest part is that Google already does the same thing with their search page. They include a small blurb and a link to the original site. While the Google Cache is likely dice, from the perspective of ad revenue being the market provider, search engines in general haven't really been questioned before. Google News is merely a search engine specifically geared towards news. If Google News is commit some illegal act by linking to news stories and including a blurb then so are most store catalogs, search engines, and tons of databases of information (lots of things one makes are copyrighted, after all).
So, I sincerely fear for what such would mean.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
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.
Bullshit. You would be advised to actually learn what in the hell you are talking about before opening your mouth.
AFP exists under special charter from the French government, and the AFP's primary client is (drum roll) the French government. The French government is financed by whom? Oh yes, the French taxpayers.
To directly quote Wikipedia, "The primary client of AFP is the French government, which purchases subscriptions for its various services. In practice, those subscriptions are somewhat a subsidy to AFP, which is insecure financially. AFP statutes prohibit direct government subsidies."
AFP could not survive without that cash from the French government, so equating them with the French State is the only reasonable conclusion that can be made.
Not that there is anything wrong with them being, for all intents and purposes, part of the French State, but face it. They are!
Now... was this present before or after the lawsuit started
/beta /francais/news /english/news
Looks like it was there before (unless they manually modified the TS, which is kinda silly).
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 18:10:51 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.27 (Unix)
Cache-Control: max-age=300
Expires: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 18:15:51 GMT
Last-Modified: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 10:54:38 GMT
ETag: "761b2-4f-421c60ee"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 79
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/plain
User-Agent: *
Disallow:
Disallow:
Disallow:
"A mind is a terrible thing to taste."
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"
Fair Use
The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: "quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author's observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported."
"A mind is a terrible thing to taste."
As the web continues it's march towards becoming the primary news source, and remains free-and-open, news agencies will suffer.
*sigh* You really don't seem to realise that "the web as a primary news source" is an oxymoron. Because, guess what - real world event don't happen on the web. They happen in the real world (duh!) And you need to have real-world journalists to report on them (double-duh!) They are the primary news source; any website that does not directly employ journalists is, at best, a secondary news source.
The AFP is composed of a few hundred journalists scattered all over the world, who write articles and take pictures on real-world events. The AFP is a major "primary news source". Web-based publications are dependent on AFP and other journalists to produce the content that appears on your screen, even though you don't seem to be aware of this basic fact. Apparently in your world news stories and photographs self-assemble spontaneously from random electronic noise.
Journalists and photographers, believe it or not, need to pay the bills too. So agencies such as AFP sell their stories to publishers (web or paper based), usually in a non-exclusive manner, without redistribution rights. This allows them to pay their journalists, who produce all the hot juicy content that titillates your ocular globes.
I'll make a very simple summary of the case for you:
- Google aggregates articles (and photographs) from public websites, with their permission.
- AFP licenses photographs to websites, without redistribution rights: The websites not allowed to redistribute the picture.
- However, Google harvests AFP-made pictures from websites and happily displays them on GoogleNews.
- AFP says to Google: "Stop that, please"
- Google ignores them
- AFP sues
Got it ?
Thomas-
Yeah, except they did that, RTFA and all that.
From TFA:
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