Google Loses Cache-Copyright Lawsuit in Belgium

acroyear writes "A court in Belgium has found that Google's website caching policies are a violation of that nation's copyright laws. The finding is that Google's cache offers effectively free access to articles that, while free initially, are archived and charged for via subscriptions. Google claims that they only store short extracts, but the court determined that's still a violation. From the court's ruling: 'It would be up to copyright owners to get in touch with Google by e-mail to complain if the site was posting content that belonged to them. Google would then have 24 hours to withdraw the content or face a daily fine of 1,000 euros ($1,295 U.S.).'"

Comments

Re:What's the problem?

[petabyte]

Or, even better, use the META tag to set NOARCHIVE:

<meta name="ROBOTS" content="NOARCHIVE" />

All of my website (quaggaspace.org) shows up in google, but you'll notice there is no "cached" button.

Here's how to fix the problem

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Here's how to fix the problem. When such a page would be linked to in the cach, instead put up the following:

This page is cached, but your government officials will not let you read it. Here are their names and addresses, and the date of the next election, and the challengers to them who have signed a document that they will reverse this ruling if elected:

Censor: Hercule Poirot
Free Speech Challenger: Agatha Christie
Next election for them: 18 Aug 2007

Censor: Phinneas d'Satay
Free Speech Challenger: Mannequin Pisse
Next election for them: 18 Aug 2007

etc.

Tailor it per local region if that can be determined from the IP.

9) Wait a few years

10) Profit!