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."

Comments

HHGTTG reference

[Bazman]

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

Re:HHGTTG reference

[ivucica]

Seems fine by me... strlen("Google") * strlen("Belgium") = 42

Saw This Yesterday

[ShedPlant]

Is this any different from http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/13/13 44248yesterday's story or has Google been involved in multiple court cases in Belgium?

Re:Saw This Yesterday

[blowdart]

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

Re:Saw This Yesterday

[Constantine XVI]

You must be new here

Re:Saw This Yesterday

[compro01]

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]

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

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

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

Re:Saw This Yesterday

[StarvingSE]

Typical /. The story I submitted yesterday was accepted, but has not appeared on either the front page or the sub-headings. Yet, we are already getting dupes of yesterdays stories....

Re:Saw This Yesterday

[acroyear]

See the other comment: it was specifically Google Cache being used as part of the Google News service. The caching system is the same, it's merely the difference in how it is presented (and its priority in coming up when one searches) that decides if a reference is presented in News or the Main google search.

Google caches *everything*, both to use it in parsing text to create the advertisement links and to have a cache available should the original be down, like, say, the /. effect, or more often because many news websites that are AP /Reuters feeds tend to not keep those articles around after a certain amount of time.

As such, Google normally makes no distinction between an feed article and an original from the news site in question.

The newspaper sites lose two ways - first is that people reading the headlines and summary text available @ google don't bother to read the site directly (so the site doesn't get the "eyeballs" for advertising) and two, the material is cached after the original site has converted it to a pay for access model. The latter is a tough call - when its free and then not, how can you really say you have control over it anymore?

Certainly legally, you do, per international copyright agreements, but realistically?

Similar questions abound when the government tries to reclassify something that has already been deemed safe for public distribution, like the various instruction pamphlets on making bombs for tree removal that they thought about taking back after McVeigh used exactly those techniques to hit Oklahoma City.

The decision was correct from a strictly legal standpoint. The law itself does not currently recognize the reality of electronic distribution through the web, of course, but its not up to the courts to change the laws, only to judge by them or judge them unconstitutional.

At any rate, it was such a small thing, and 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. the lack of details about what it means to the layperson is what led to yesterday's early stock price drop, a drop that shouldn't have happened because it has nothing to do with google's real long term prospects.

Re:Saw This Yesterday

[acroyear]

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:Saw This Yesterday

[Fordiman]

I dunno. I store the contents of the New York Times, the Economist and the Wall Street Journal daily. But then, I'm a serious data hoarder.

Re:Saw This Yesterday

[Fordiman]

That would be very good.

"No cache, no search."

You'd see how quickly people clam up about being cached.

Meanwhile, it's like they've never used a robots.txt or something.

Re:Saw This Yesterday

[ivucica]

Personally, I read Slashdot only through Google Desktop's news feed. And I also read the other electronic newspapers the same way. I agree that Google violates copyright; I don't really feel good when I know that my every thought I ever posted on the net with this nickname is indexed for posterity. For the same reason I don't feel good about Wayback Machine. Google should be made to bring in an opt-in service; the opt-out service still wastes bandwidth on those little robots.txt files.

Re:Saw This Yesterday

[leenks]

I really don't see what all the fuss is about. I read my news through the Google News "portal" because it pushes things into one place. I usually end up visiting the sites of the papers in question to view the articles directly, or to see what else was said by them in the past. I wouldn't have bothered to visit all those hundreds of news sites individually so the sites would have lost out on my hits.

The same applies with Slashdot, Digg etc. - although that's worse, because I normally just skim the summary and top comments unless I think the summary might have missed something. When is Slashdot going to get dragged through the courts?

Re:Saw This Yesterday

[jc42]

I store the contents of the New York Times, the Economist and the Wall Street Journal daily. But then, I'm a serious data hoarder.

You don't have to be a serious data hoarder to do this. Many of us do the same, merely by using a browser to access their web sites. The browser does the caching, whether we're consciously aware of it or not.

I do wonder if we're going to soon hear of a lawsuit about this caching of copyrighted material by browsers. It's a stupid idea, of course, but that never stopped many lawyers or overzealous prosecutors.

Similarly, I often wonder when the "copying is piracy" crowd discovers the unix "cp" command. Just think of all the copyright violations that this little program has enabled.

What's good for the goose...

[Xonstantine]

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

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

[malsdavis]

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]

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...

[Bill Dimm]

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:What's good for the goose...

[delinear]

I imagine it is quite rare. However, what is not rare at all and is actually pretty common is that people just type in the name of the organisation (and also quite often the entire url) into a Google search. Now, maybe those people would change their habits if they couldn't find the site they typed in, but maybe they'll just choose a "close enough" result from the results that were returned. I certainly wouldn't want to be the guy responsible for potentially not only killing a lot of traffic to my company's site, but maybe even directing said traffic to my company's immediate competitors...

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

[Daemonstar]

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...

[Xonstantine]

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?

No, I have not. But I have gone to news sites I never would've otherwise gone to or known about due to stories on google news. While the top newspapers in Belgium probably won't see their traffic plummet to zero, they probably would see an adverse traffic impact, which will correspondingly hurt their advertising revenue. Given the financial difficulties of running a newspaper these days (at least in the U.S., European papers may be fairing better), reducing your online traffic flow doesn't seem to be a very intelligent move when that traffic flow in turn drives advertising revenue.

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

[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 unity, I just oppose the EU in particular. Belgium/brussels is the EU equivalent of washington d.c. , it's no surprise they've pulled something as assinine as this.

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

[Hognoxious]

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...

[malsdavis]

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:What's good for the goose...

[KDR_11k]

Eh, the companies would just complain about trademark infringement.

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

[Greyfox]

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:What's good for the goose...

[Catil]

Although this sounds like a reasonable retaliation, Google's priority seems to be keeping sites indexed and cached by all means; otherwise they wouldn't even have gone to court and try to win this case.
Perhaps they will find a semantic solution to this problem.

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

[jedaustin]

I think they should delete the indexes for every site in Belgium.
For 99% of the word we wouldn't even notice.
You can't be too careful!

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

[walt-sjc]

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 larger readership levels.

The "cache" issue is those sites that want google to index their articles, but want readers to pay for the content. In essence, they want "free" advertising / marketing via google. I say, Delist the cheapskate bastards.

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

[walt-sjc]

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

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

[NoDude!]

It's not that simple. The main idea behind the google algorithms, is that there is no direct human interaction in the choice of what should be displayed and what not. If they start deleting sites who complain from their database, they might as well give in to all the "protect the children" crap and delete all porn links by hand.

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

[malsdavis]

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 even as a Search Engine if prominent media websites (which as previously stated have amongst the highest unique hit rates) are absent from Google.

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

[Dragonslicer]

Why not just nuke it from orbit? That is the only way to be sure.

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

[walt-sjc]

If widows live provides summaries to news content, and they DO, then they have the exact same problem Google has.

When people are interested in a certain current event or other topic, they don't go to many different individual sites to find that content, they either go to a single news site or search for it on a search engine. If search engines are not allowed to display a short summary of the page, then you will end up with results like: "Cnn matches, NYT matches" which is USELESS. You need the snipit / summary to determine if the match really is what you are looking for, or is a bad result. Even with very specific search terms, I frequently find the best result is not always in the first 10 returned. Imagine if you had to go to each and every site to determine if the hit is good or bad..

This particular suit was about the short summaries - not the full text of the article: the scenario above would apply.

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

[malsdavis]

For the last time: I am not talking about news summaries!!!

Are you even reading the posts you are replying to?

The original post referred to possible Google reciprocal action of completely de-listing the websites from their search engine.

The rest of your post doesn't even make sense.

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

[ehrichweiss]

They use "direct human intervention" all the time to remove websites or else some people wouldn't have their sites delisted/banned for gateway pages, or whatever other factors that they don't like.

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

[walt-sjc]

Yes I am reading your posts, but you are perhaps not reading mine.

This news article is all about the content of news sites on google - not whether you type in "cnn" and google returning the CNN home page URL. That is a pointless and mostly useless search, and discussion about it has NOTHING to do with what is going on. If google delists, they will most likely remove content oriented results so that if you search for CNN you get cnn, but if you search for "iraq" you won't get any results that point to articles on CNN's site.

You are missing the bigger picture. This is about copyright, and the ability for a search engine to display a summary of site content. If even the smallest summary violates copyright, then search engines as they exist today would cease to exist because they would not be able to give you anymore than a Yes / No result sorted by relevance. THAT is what is important.

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

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Really? I've never seen anyone do that...

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

[caseih]

Well maybe in retribution to Belgium for their extreme copyright position, rather than delist things, they could just make sure this site is ranked up near number one for any searches with Belgium in the terms.

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

[malsdavis]

"This news article is all about the content of news sites on google - not whether you type in "cnn" and google returning the CNN home page URL. That is a pointless and mostly useless search, and discussion about it has NOTHING to do with what is going on"

It has everything to do with searches for "cnn". If you had read the previous posts you would see that the entire focus of this thread is people using google as an address bar and start page, not people searching for "Iraq" or whatever.

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

[rucs_hack]

Google has the most money, so I suspect the case is more about a fast buck.

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

[squiggleslash]

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.

The thing Google is being told not to do is cache content or do deep linking. The thing every pro-Google "Fight teh man" Slashhead is demanding is Google remove links to the newspapers completely.

If people are just trying to find a newspaper's home page, then Google removing their ability to do that via Google would, certainly, undermine Google's credibility with end users. If I search for "New York Times", I expect to find the NYT's website. If Google doesn't give that to me, I'm not going to use Google. I wasn't searching for New York Times as a gag, or on a whim, that's what I wanted, and a search engine that can't give that to me isn't a search engine I'd subscribe to.

So yes, Yahoo would gain a competitive advantage if Google stopped linking to particular newspapers completely. Google doesn't have to do that, and an act on its part to do that wouldn't do anyone any favours, neither itself, nor its users.

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

[Fordiman]

They do lose out on traffic from people searching for specific topics, though. I do believe that would be a good-sized chunk.

God DAMN it, what do I gotta do to get rid of the one minute 'Slow Down Cowboy' limit here? It's just annoying, especially when I've got something topical to say.

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

[Fordiman]

In reply to your sig: I'm not criticizing, but who's in favor of chopping down the Amazon to make biofuels? You can't make biodiesel from wood, to my recollection, and corn makes much better feedstock for TCP. In fact, if there's a good way to make cellulose into a fuel, bamboo would be a much cheaper way to go; just plant stands of it in place of all the condemned housing in the inner cities.

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

[powro]

Actually Belgian people (these newspapers's relevant market) do not find these websites through Google, they know them by name, so I guess it would not change anything...

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

[walt-sjc]

And the next sentence in my post that you didn't quote addresses this. Now you are just trolling.

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

[Fordiman]

How would you go about nuking a non-existent country?

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

[anethema]

I would guess you are wrong for at least one reason.

While I'm sure some people go to the website directly, I bet many people just search for the topic of some recent news in google. For example if there were riots, someone might just google for 'belgium riots' and click the first link.

Basically they would lose everyone just googling for news about a topic rather than typing the site directly.

Other than /., I for one never visit a news site. I use google news.

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

[StikyPad]

And I'm sure if the search failed they'd probably think cnn was gone. There's absolutely no chance that they'd think of typing it into the address bar directly.

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

[nmos]

And I'm sure if the search failed they'd probably think cnn was gone. There's absolutely no chance that they'd think of typing it into the address bar directly.

Pretty much. You'd be surprised at just how many people don't have any idea what the address bar is for.

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

[powro]

Well, I use google news only after I have been reading slashdot, lesoir.be, lameuse.be, lemonde.fr... But, maybe I'm doing like that because I'm Belgian, after all :-)

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

[malsdavis]

No, you just came up with a quite frankly ridiculous scenario which bares no sense in reality and - once again - even less sense in context to the discussion at hand.

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

[jc42]

If people are just trying to find a newspaper's home page, then Google removing their ability to do that via Google would, certainly, undermine Google's credibility with end users. If I search for "New York Times", I expect to find the NYT's website. ...

Maybe what google should do is inform the user of the problem. Instead of the usual excerpt showing your search terms, they could say something like:

X's main page
There is a relevant page at X, but X doesn't allow us to show you their text. So we've just provide a link to X's main page, and you can try their search tool to find the page. Good luck.

This might get across to X's management that they've shot themselves in the feet.

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

[ElleyKitten]

This would work both ways though. People only use Google as their address bar because they are pretty certain the website will come up. ... 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.

If people type a full url into google, it's pretty safe to say that they don't know what the address bar does. Can you imagine these people changing their home pages?

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

[malsdavis]

Regardless of the crop the main common need is space, space in which to grow these lucrative crops. Judging by recent Brazilian government statemnents, the only area of the Amazon which has a chance of surviving the next 50 years is tiny areas in the north.

In awnser to your question: No-one is currently stating "lets cut-down the Amazon to make biofuels" but in the same way noone in the 9's and 90's said "lets destroy 1/3 of the Amazon to produce Soya and Cattle", it still happened. I believe if biofuels are pursued significantly then it is probable that the Amazon will destroyed so that the Biofuel companies (i.e. current Oil Companies) can grow their cash cows. Its pure (short-term) economics.

Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[geekoid]

And people complain about American copyright. Sheesh

Re:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Yes they do. Socialism has always been "big business OMG EVIL CAPITALISTS STABBITYSTABSTAB DIE DIE DIE" regardless of the particular merits or vices of the business in question. Except when the Big Business in question is The Government. Then it's all okay.

Re:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[unborracho]

Can you say 'retarded judge'?

Re:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[Tom]

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

Belgium is a constitutional monarchy, and it's current prime minister is a member of the VLD party, 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:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[Hognoxious]

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:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you automatically label other countries as being "socialist" purely because your own views lie on the right of the international political spectrum?

Re:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[bogjobber]

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:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[Tom]

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 experience of actual socialist countries.

Re:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[IgnoramusMaximus]

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 a socialist country, the criterion is not the word "private" but the overall offect on society such operations have. Since gigantic mega-businesses do impact society in significant ways (mostly negatively) that automatically produces a desire to counter-act these activities by the socialists. That is why socialists are likely to be for nationalization of major assets such as natural resources, roads etc. But they will not be so inclined when it comes to bakeries, grocery stores, muffler shops and the like.

Re:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[edward2020]

Oh, but the government has our best interests at heart. Who knows better than a faceless bureaucracy? On a side note - I imagine that many /.ers who currently rail against capaitalism would have a complete turn-around with their first IPO.

Re:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[bogjobber]

Well, I probably phrased that a little poorly. I didn't mean to imply that socialism always equals communism. It's just that socialists believe the workers should share in the control of production (either through government control, trade unions, etc.). Obviously there is a wide range in this, from US style socialism (not much) all the way to communism.

Re:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[newt0311]

mod parent and gp up for funny AND insightful posts.

Re:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[remmelt]

This just screams for a "You must be new here" comment.

This is Slashdot, most every view is extremely tainted, simplified and biased. No experience whatsoever is needed. I thought that was a condition for admission?

Re:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[rossifer]

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:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[slimjim8094]

I don't think the guy with the 3digit UID is new... but I hope that's why you didn't actually make a "You must be new here" comment...

Re:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[Fordiman]

So, hold on. You're saying it's bad to be anti-social, but good to be anti-socialist? I'm so confused!

Re:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[Tom]

Ok, I realize that "socialist" has very different meanings on either side of the atlantic ocean. I haven't heard France nor Sweden call themselves socialist, and I live within a thousand miles or so of both. But I might be mistaken, it's not as if I study either country.

Most of the communist countries, however, did call themselves socialist. There are also fairly strong socialist parties in most of Europe. However, pretty much every adult member of society realizes they are about as socialist as the "christian democratic union" of Germany is christian (which is: Not that any difference is visible. It's historic baggabe from back in the early 50s when they joined with a centrist christian party, but let's cut the history lesson short).

Almost everything the average american appears to consider "socialist" is considered centrist in Europe. Health care, for example. Maybe that's why our system is slightly less broken than yours. Gun control is just common sense if you consider that Europe has a much higher concentration of cities than the USA (and let's face it, owning a couple guns isn't as much of a problem somewhere out in Texas as it is somewhere down in the Bronx).

Anyways, without an objective definition of "socialist", the argument probably rests on semantics.

However, I still object to the use of the word in this context, because about half the time some dofus from southern Texas uses it, it's means as an insult, not as a political classification.

Re:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[Anonymous Coward]

Countries run by dictators tend to call themselves whatever they want with no basis in reality. Just look at The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) also know as North Korea.

Re:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[yendor]

I am very sorry to break it to you but Belgium have several layers of government and the part of Belgium that copiepresse works is the French spoken part commonly known as Vallonia. Vallonias government is socialist even though the Federal government is a coalition since there are no single party big enough to run the country. Several partys in the coaliton are socialist.

This is issue with google is more likely a stupid atempt at getting money from big business without understanding that it hurts their business. Their core readers buy the paper version like "normal people" and we need to remember that computer literacy in this part of Belgium is nothing like the north end of the country.

Re:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[IgnoramusMaximus]

It's just that socialists believe the workers should share in the control of production (either through government control, trade unions, etc.).

And I was attempting to point out that it is not the case. Socialists are not concerned as much about the "means of production" bit (that is the communist thing) but about the businesses and their owners being good members of the society (i.e. not causing harm to their neighbours, employees etc). The control part might come into play as a side effect of considering how major national assets should be dealt with. For example consider these differences:

• From the perspective of capitalism, the only factor of importance is profitability of a business. That means that the business must be nice (or succesfully deceitful) to its customers. How it treats its employees (they might be indentured slaves) or how does it treat its neighbours or environment is irrelevant (because it usually does not impact sales -- sad but true)
• To a socialist, this is unacceptable because such a business is a bad member of the society. The problem is not the "profit" part (or "ownership", or "control" parts) but how does this business go about procuring it. Subsequently socialists will seek to empower the employees (via unions, or regulations or what not) and to restrict the environmental damage (by regulation, taxation penalties and what not). Note that the "control of means of production" is not a part of the equation.
• To a communist the very idea of a "business" run for profit (instead of the benefit of humanity) is abhorrent. Means of production are all "owned" by the workers (meaning all of the workers, not just the ones working in a particular place). A communist society does not feature competition for survival between various worker-controlled factories etc. The idea (a rather naive one) was that the meticulous planning and analysis of needs of the society and allocation of resources will take place of the capitalist-style competition. That is why many of the original communist ideologies involved abolishment of money.

In other words communism and socialism are not just two stops on the same scale, they are two different worldviews, each concerned with different aspect of human behaviour (one with kind, humane society and the other with "ownership" of things, allocation of products etc). Few of the remedies to some of the problems they seek to address can coincide but that is a result of the fact that they both originated as a response to the same defficiencies of industialized societies. Note that communist theoreticians also tended to be socialists since they hoped that their money-less utopia would turn out kind to its members...

Re:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[rossifer]

Anyways, without an objective definition of "socialist", the argument probably rests on semantics.

Yup. When the definitions are so divergent, some effort will have to be made to determine the author's intended usage.

However, I still object to the use of the word in this context, because about half the time some dofus from southern Texas uses it, it's means as an insult, not as a political classification.

Well, just use words with two and three syllables and they'll abandon the discussion as too much work. This won't help with people from Austin, but then they'll likely be on your side anyway.

Regards,
Ross

Re:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[remmelt]

Everyone has their moments.

(Damn, I didn't even notice... I must be new here. Or wait.)

Re:Do socialist countries just hate big business?

[Hognoxious]

Ok, I realize that "socialist" has very different meanings on either side of the atlantic ocean.

Atlantic Ocean? Try the English channel. By the way, East Germany, Poland etc that you mentioned above were not socialist; they were communist.

And the Belgians win

[Vengeance]

Or to put it another, more accurate way, they lose.

This is what happens when business is run by those who fail to understand it, or indeed to even know what their actual core business IS. C'est la guerre.

Fair use

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Especially that fair use is a very american law concept which doesn't exist in many countries.

Re:Fair use

[edward2020]

Sure, but other countries have similar code. Things like "fair dealing" and "Limitations and exceptions to copyright." Of course IANAL, and some of my info came from wikipedia (that bastion of truth and NPOV).

Slashdot found guilty of editorialism violations

[Vivieus]

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/13/13 44248

Fair use vs. copy of?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

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]

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:Fair use vs. copy of?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fair use is not a universal legal concept.

Re:Fair use vs. copy of?

[kripkenstein]

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:Fair use vs. copy of?

[Tom]

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.

Re:Fair use vs. copy of?

[mrcdeckard]

and it seems that, in general, this ruling is un-european. it almost seems like their anti-american brain beat out their pro-european brain with this ruling.

mr c

Re:Fair use vs. copy of?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the poster thought Belgium copyright law was sane and had a fair use clause. There was no need to be an asshole about it.

Re:Fair use vs. copy of?

[neoform]

Are you sure it's based solely on percentage? (this could be a problem for my site newsique.com) Since I've encountered many articles on various news sites that have articles that are less than 400 characters long. Sometimes only 2 or 3 sentences.. (eg. breaking news of someone's death)..

what then? can you not quote from a story that's so short since you would then be exceeding the 10% or 5% rules.. ?

Re:Fair use vs. copy of?

[jrumney]

The newspapers also would like to restrict access to their "archives" (which they regard as a pay-to-see resource).

They can restrict access to their archives all they like now. I think what they're really scared of is that Google provides an easy way to find other news sources with the same story, that do not charge for access to their archive. What they are trying to do here is make Google less useful for searching for news stories, in an attempt to get back their captive audience.

Re:Fair use vs. copy of?

[Anonymous Coward]

The law of the land overrides the EU laws. The UK's IR35 taxation is illegal under European law, it was raised in the UK parliament, to which the chancellor of the exchequer responded "So? It's the law of this land".

In the UK the law states a man who loses his wife through death cannot receive child support like a widow would. That's a pure sexist law, it's against European law, and cannot be overturned unless the European monkeys sue the UK into compliance.

Guess what, they never do. Any country can pretty much do what the hell it likes.

Re:Fair use vs. copy of?

[Tacvek]

The percentage is not a rule. You can use 100% and still be fair use in some circumstances. Lets say somebody writes a 100 line poem. If you were to write a large (perhaps thousand page) book that picks the poem apart line by line and analyzes it in great depth, that book may end up containing the entire poem. That is fine though. After all the amount of new material far outweighs the original.

Re:Fair use vs. copy of?

[ACMENEWSLLC]

>>The newspapers also would like to restrict access to their "archives" (which they regard as a pay-to-see resource).

So what is stopping them from doing that now? Or are you suggesting that Google do the programming for them?

If I don't want Google to index my site, it's not hard for me to achieve this. I can #1) block their spider's by IP range, #2) block using http header inspection, #3) block based on referrer information when the link is clicked. #4) put REAL security on my site, not pseudo security.

Re:Fair use vs. copy of?

[k-sound]

the real question is why anyone would prosecute over something that's driving hits to their page and generating ad revenue?

Most likely because some newspapers (I know a few in Belgium) only allow access to older articles to paying customers, like subscribers to the physical paper.

That being said I think suing google and by doing so losing X hundreds/thousands of free visitors a day is probably the most retarded idea ever.

Re:Fair use vs. copy of?

[sjlumme]

Fair use in the US is not defined as a percentage, or as anything else simple and definite. It's what lawyers call a "multi-prong balancing test": there are some factors that make a use more fair, some that make them less fair, and each of those have different "weights". That way, you can virtually always put up an argument either way, and the arguments sit on a long gliding scale from well-established doctrine to slightly avant-guarde speculation to outright crackpottery. The annoying thing is that, of course, this means you're never quite sure of your rights unless you actually get sued. As Larry Lessig has said about a proposal to introduce a similar fuzzy test for orphan works, lawyers love 5-factor balancing tests, because they invariably mean more (well-paid) work for the lawyers than simple rules. But my point was, please do not spread rumors about US copyright law allegedly allowing for N pages, or M minutes, or anything else that sounds like it actually makes sense, unless you have actually found a precedent (not just a statutory provision; those are regularly re-interpreted beyond recognition).

The exponents hurt my brain

[Shard013]

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:The exponents hurt my brain

[Teresita]

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!

That's about right. If you're in a bittorrent swarm you share less than 1% of a file, but you owe MPAA $150,000 and your first-born child.

Re:The exponents hurt my brain

[Shard013]

Lucky I live in Australia, the MPAA has some other name here with which to sue me.

Re:The exponents hurt my brain

[emag]

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...

Re:Slashdot found guilty of editorialism violation

[Penguinoflight]

They can't look back that far for articles, it was posted NEARLY 24 hours ago.

MY new business model

[aepervius]

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...

Re:MY new business model

[Anonymous Coward]

?? goes between 5 and 6, as usual. It is the look on the judge's face.

Heh heh captcha: reproof
That's about right.

hmm

[TinBromide]

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]

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:IP Rights.

[Pantero Blanco]

[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" states do tend to be more obsessed with IP rights.

Lawyers, unfortunately, are pretty much omnipresent.

Re:IP Rights.

[trudyscousin]

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

Even the mauve, taupe, and paisley ones?

Re:IP Rights.

[Omnifarious]

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?

Re:IP Rights.

[Hognoxious]

Even the mauve, taupe, and paisley ones?

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

Re:IP Rights.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more insidious than any ... rouge nation.

Insidious? What, do the French have more nefarious reasons for not pasteurizing their cheese than anyone could possibly have imagined...?

Re:IP Rights.

[noidentity]

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

I'm not a big fan of makeup either, but that's taking it a bit far!

Copyright law in Belgium

[Anonymous Coward]

The copyright law in Belgium is completely different than for the US (I presume). One of the problems is that Google cached the newsarticles instead of just linking to them. Another thing about the copyright although I posted this message in the public domain on Slashdot, I still reserve all rights to it and can sue anyone who even quotes this message. In real life I'll probably lose the case since when someone quotes this I won't lose any money over it. In the best case I win and receive a symbolic euro or something like that.

In google' case it was about lost advertising revenue (IIRC).

reminds me of France and iTunes

[gravesb]

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:reminds me of France and iTunes

[Tom]

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:reminds me of France and iTunes

[gravesb]

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?

Re:reminds me of France and iTunes

[Tom]

So who really won the real victory? I'm not quite sure. Who paid half a billion in fines? The EU or MS?

Re:reminds me of France and iTunes

[gravesb]

Winning is who is shaping the market place, not who paid the fine. The EU was trying to provide consumer choice by preventing MS from bundling a media player. If you examine the marketplace now, does MS continue to have a competitive advantage in the media player market based on bundling? Yes, they do. Do the advantages they have received exceed the fines? I would assume so, but that's something that you need MS internal records to determine. However, their continued conduct suggests that it was. So, the EU increased MS's cost of business, but the behavior they were trying to curtail continues unabated. So I would say MS won. On an interesting side notes, I wonder if Apple has changed the equation with the inclusion of Quicktime in iTunes. If so, and there is a competitive marketplace in Europe for media players, at least between MS Media Player and Quicktime, then Apple, in the market, succeeded where Europe, in the courts, failed.

Re:reminds me of France and iTunes

[Tom]

Winning is who is shaping the market place, not who paid the fine That definition of winning only works if all participants are playing in the same market. Google, the EU competition office and a court of law don't exactly do that, do they?

I agree that the choice of media players hasn't happened. However, I very much doubt (and hope!) that courts don't think in terms of "winning" and "losing".

Re:reminds me of France and iTunes

[gravesb]

The laws the are enforcing are passed with certain policy goals in mind. If there verdicts don't advance those policy goals, then they have lost. The EU failed in trying to create a free and open market for media players through the court system. It ended up being a waste of tax payer's time, although maybe not money because of the verdict. However, there were other ways to achieve the goal that were not used because the EU relied on the courts, and now they are no better off than when they started.

Re:reminds me of France and iTunes

[Tom]

"failed" and "lost" aren't the same thing. Really not.

Re:Slashdot found guilty of editorialism violation

[Vivieus]

At least they have the excuse that it was not on the front page anymore ;)

Again!?

[Anonymous Coward]

The same thing happened last week.

Scary!

[Jugalator]

So this quote:

South Korea and its partners in international efforts to dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons programs welcomed on Wednesday the agreement reached in Beijing to shut the Communist state's main nuclear reactor.

... could be a case of copyright infrigement on the International Herald Tribune?!

Besides, why are these guys trying to stop Google from linking to their web site?

Reserve the right to refuse service

[DrugCheese]

Google should just stop listing the offended site. I know it sets up precedence in court, but Google should just stop crawling the site. See how long before the sites' hits drop so low they start begging Google to list them again.

Re:Reserve the right to refuse service

[Hognoxious]

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:Reserve the right to refuse service

[91degrees]

Google's motto is "don't be evil". Abusing their power in this way because of a disagreement with a legal judgement would be stretching the concept of "not evil" a little.

Re:Reserve the right to refuse service

[Tom]

Yes, the newspapers cried.

However, they didn't use their de facto powers to attack Google, they used the court system as our society intents, because that (resolving dispures) is what the court systems are for.

Google is welcome and planning to use the same means to get a different ruling. They've been acting restrained and responsibly in all those cases.

I also think the jerks on /. who project their dreams of power on Google or MS ("leave europe!") are probably working minimum wage jobs for a good reason. Shooting someone just because you happen to have the gun isn't how society works anymore.

Re:Reserve the right to refuse service

[Dog-Cow]

Are you an idiot, or do you just play one on slashdot?

If Google were to delist these Newspapers, that would not be an attack on the Newspapers. Google does not need a court ruling to delist anyone, so why should they go to the courts to do so? If Google feels they benefit from listing the 'papers, Google is free to appeal the court ruling. Otherwise, why should Google go through that expense?

People may make fun of the kid who takes his marbles and goes home, but only an idiot like you would claim he needs a Court's permission to do so.

Re:Reserve the right to refuse service

[edward2020]

Apparently you have never been on the recieving end of real "force." I don't believe the poster was advocating a scenario where Google sends in their security force to kick ass. And the "Wild West" - dude - people got shot and killed in the Wild West (in fact I live in the town where the first actual "shoot-out" supposedly occured). How does that have anything to do with Google delisting some news site?

Re:Reserve the right to refuse service

[Anonymous Coward]

Our society does not have a court system with the intent of it being used by corporation A to get government force on their side to prevent corporation B from doing something which is beneficial to the rest of us. Having a lawyer go and persuade on old man in a wig that you're side is right is a 'de facto' power of anyone (or, indeed any corporation), it's just another tool in the box as is stopping providing a free service to anyone who uses it against you.

Re:Reserve the right to refuse service

[Hognoxious]

Yeah, because legal always equals good and illegal always means evil.

Re:Reserve the right to refuse service

[spun]

Withdrawal of reward is not the same as use of force. There are two issues at hand here, the judge in this case only ruled on one of them, copyright. No ruling is needed on the other, which is whether google wants to continue using their resources that they have paid for to support companies that attack them. In the "Wild West" we had shootouts in the street. The option we are discussing here is the equivalent of taking your ball and going home because you don't like the way the game turned out. Perhaps not the most mature option, but it's your fucking ball!

By your logic, people sued by the recording industry have a moral obligation to continue purchasing music. By what moral reasoning do you arrive at the conclusion thatno longer wanting to do business with people who have sued you is the moral equivalent of forming a lynch mob and hanging someone?

Re:Reserve the right to refuse service

[91degrees]

No. But getting taking it upon yourself to punish those you disagree with is evil. And accepting legal judgements stoically is not evil.

Re:Reserve the right to refuse service

[Tom]

Your argument was good and almost convincing until the last part. You see, Google isn't doing business with these people. And that's the whole point of it. That's what they wanted Google to do - do business with them, i.e. get a share of what Google makes in profit thanks to the news they publish.

It's not Google stopping to buy their newspapers, as per your example. Rather on the contrary - stopping to do that (without paying) was what the case was all about.

Re:Reserve the right to refuse service

[Tom]

Force doesn't have to be physical. It can be psychological (talk to any mobbing victim if you don't believe that) or money/market based (talk to Stacker, Netscape, Novell's DRDOS department - if you can find any of them).

Re:Reserve the right to refuse service

[Tom]

Our society does not have a court system with the intent of it being used by corporation A to get government force on their side to prevent corporation B from doing something which is beneficial to the rest of us. Correct. The court doesn't care about benefits, it cares about whether or not corporation B is acting illegally.

The argument that a crime for the sake of the public good has been discussed extensively by the ancient greek. It's one of those which can not be objectively concluded, but all legal systems based on the roman code of laws has realized that you can not let people off because their crime benefited someone or even everyone. You might lower his punishment, but not too much.

Re:Reserve the right to refuse service

[Tom]

Are you an idiot, or do you just play one on slashdot? For the past 10 years or so, why do you ask? :-)

If Google were to delist these Newspapers, that would not be an attack on the Newspapers. Re-read grandparent, please. His comment was specifically aimed at Google delisting them in revenge. That would be a knee-jerk reaction, but the grandparents argument was that by doing so, Google would "show them". We have a court system to "show it". Google is smart enough to use it (they already announced they'll appeal), grandparent isn't.

Re:Reserve the right to refuse service

[spun]

They are doing business with them in the same sense television stations do business with you. They provide you with a free service. In exchange, they deliver your attention to advertisers. Even though you do not pay them, you are an integral part of their business method. Even though these online services do not pay google, google is providing them with a service, delivering hits. In exchange, Google gets the traffic that comes in search of them. If google wants to forgo listing them on Google's servers then that is Google's business. These companies that took google to court want to eat their cake and have it too. They don't want Google to cache their content, but they want Google to list them. The court has ruled they can't cache content, fine. It's not Google's content. But Google no more has to list these companies than you do. Would you enjoy being forced toadvertise for people who not only aren't paying you, but take you to court?

Now, if a court decides Google is a monopoly, and abusing their monopoly power, then that would change things. Google could not will-nilly decide not to list people. But until then, they most certainly can decide what to do with their equipment. Not that they will do that, it would hurt them as much as the people that took them to court. It's just that, from a moral standpoint, I can't see anything wrong with google de-listing anyone that pisses them off, or for any other reason including them just having a bad day. I'd be kind of angry with them if they started doing stuff like that, but I wouldn't say they were doing evil, just being annoying.

Re:Reserve the right to refuse service

[Tom]

Yes, I am a part of their business. Which is exactly what this lawsuit was all about. The newspapers were complaining that Googles business consisted of using copyrighted text from their webpage, without permission or giving them a share of the profits.

Re:Reserve the right to refuse service

[DrugCheese]

Use force? Google is providing a free service for this company by listing their website on the front of news.google.com It's the company using force because they think they're losing out on something. If they're wrong they're gonna have to take it down anyway no? And when the company notices that 80% of the traffic to their site disappears when google takes them down ...

Re:Reserve the right to refuse service

[spun]

Sure, and the newspapers had every right to sue. But google has the right to say, "Look, if you want to be listed on our site, you have to let us cache your pages. Don't want to let us cache? Then we aren't listing your site."

Now, they may have the right to do that, but I doubt they will. It doesn't make financial sense for them. They depend on content providers, as much if not more than the content providers depend on them.

Out of curiosity, do you think these newspapers have the right to force google to list them, on their terms, without caching text? Or do you just think the newspapers have the right not to have their content used, without having the right to force google to list them?

Re:Reserve the right to refuse service

[Tom]

No, I do not think Google has an obligation to list them.

I simply pointed out that "then we delist you. There!" was a mighty childish thing to do. Typical /. knee-jerk reaction, much like the "then MS should pull out of europe" stupidity.

Re:Reserve the right to refuse service

[spun]

They have the right to do it, but it would be incredibly childish, not to mention financially stupid and a PR disaster. I think we're in agreement.

Where do I begin?

[beerdini]

My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. What else would you expect from the country that gave us Dr. Evil's (adoptive)father? Its still not enough to make me quit eating their waffles or chocolate. MMMMM....chocolate Belgium waffles

Re:Where do I begin?

[Anonymous Coward]

MMMMM....chocolate Belgium waffles

Sounds better than the other national food - chocolate Brussels sprouts!

conversation

[fuliginous]

I find it difficult to reconcile because I think of the internet far more as a conversation than a transmission. And so passing on links and summaries is more like repeating in abbreviated form something you overheard (or were in the audience for) in your own words but with enough extra info they can go and look for themselves.

Re:Slashdot found guilty of editorialism violation

[compro01]

similar headline, but not the same case. that one was about google's web caching, this one is about google news.

Why Not Use Real Nerd Numbers?

[quadra23]

Google will be forced to pay $32,600 for each day it displayed the links of the plaintiffs.

That's awfully close to a nerd number: 2 to the power of 15 = $32,768 [1]. We are talking about computers here, and there's nothing computers like more then binary numbers! Maybe the court was being generous by choosing a slightly lower number. What do you think Google will do with that *extra* $168 dollars a day they are not being charged?

[1] For the fun of it, I used Google Calculator to give the proof, and yes the Caret symbol is really a bitwise operator but not according to Google Calculator. I suppose one could say that Google is guilty of "Bitwise Violation" also...but that's for another article ;)

Re:Why Not Use Real Nerd Numbers?

[Anonymous Coward]

$ echo "2^15" | bc
32768

idiot

Re:Why Not Use Real Nerd Numbers?

[raynet]

I would assume that the fines are in euros (wouldn't know, didn't read the article) and $32,600 is about 25000€.

Would it have killed you...

[jpellino]

.. to title this story "Brussels Sprouts Stink"

I agree completely

[Anonymous Coward]

Computers, and the Internet, have changed the world. It works differently now. Unfortunately, a great percentage of the population got left behind. Even more unfortunately, most of our lawmakers and even business owners are in that group.

The end result is this kind of logical absurdity. Good guys being punished for doing reasonable and beneficial things.

I wish that generation would hurry up and die off.

Re:I agree completely

[Fordiman]

Nice insight there. Wish I had mod points.

Of course, I don't understand what it is about passing age forty that makes so many people apathetic towards new technology and ideas - they're the ones who are largely in control of the direction of the world, and they almost always need to know about the new stuff to do their jobs.

It's just damned retarded.

Fair Use?

[Luscious868]

This has nothing to do with fair use. Google is using copyrighted material to turn a profit. We're not talking about some not for profit blogger here or a journalist sighting portions of an article on some other site to further a point. This is Google using copyrighted material to turn a profit in the form of increased advertising revenue and the company in question has every right to sue to prevent others from profiting from content that they have created.

Re:Fair Use?

[smartr]

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:Fair Use?

[manual_overide]

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:Fair Use?

[planetmn]

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

Re:Fair Use?

[e4g4]

Google is using copyrighted material to turn a profit. I'm not sure how they're managing that - a quick look at Google News shows that Google doesn't have a *single* ad on their news page. How, then, are they making any profit whatsoever from these companies, short of hosting ads on the articles themselves (at the news outlet's own site, which would also mean they're generating profits for said news outlet)?

Belgium IS NOT FRANCE!!! FFS

[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 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgium

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

[Saint V Flux]

You might want to learn to read - he merely used France as the country for which he'd exploit his idea. He never said it was Belguim or even referenced TFA. I'm guessing you're one of the 95% of modern liberals who can't follow basic logic, right? :)

Re:Belgium IS NOT FRANCE!!! FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

Chocolate
waffles
french fries (they are invented in Belgium, not in France...) ...

belgians do NOT eat fries with cheese and/or ham. Only the British do that.

But yes, we do put mayonaise on our fries :-)

Re:Belgium IS NOT FRANCE!!! FFS

[breckinshire]

I'm guessing you're one of the 75% of Yanks who thinks "passport" is a request to share fortified wine, right? Oooh, burn!

Re:Belgium IS NOT FRANCE!!! FFS

[P. Niss]

I'm guessing you're one of the 75% of Yanks who thinks "passport" is a request to share fortified wine, right?

Of course not!!! How insulting! All of us "Yanks" know that "passport" is the most delicious Scotch money can buy!

And they say we have no taste. . .

Re:Belgium IS NOT FRANCE!!! FFS

[loconet]

"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.

Re:Belgium IS NOT FRANCE!!! FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps this fine move by Copiepresse will promote searching for news in Flemish instead of French. One can only hope. Suing Google seems like a typical Belgian move. With regard to food, the Belgians at least give you enough, and any deficiencies can be well hidden by using the mayonnaise.

Re:Belgium IS NOT FRANCE!!! FFS

[powro]

I don't know where you were eating in Belgium, but clearly you missed something :-) Your ham, your cheese and your fries, they look like a fastfood menu. You will find any kind of food for a good price in Belgium, and there are many specialities in every region (not including those imported thanks to the numerous times we were occupied and thanks to the immigrants). Belgian cuisine is second to French cuisine only :-)

Re:Belgium IS NOT FRANCE!!! FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

He was talking about HIS idea. Perhaps he's French?

robots.txt

[GuyverDH]

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.

Re:robots.txt

[88NoSoup4U88]

Iirc, there's also a

<noarchive>

parameter possible within the robot.txt file which prevents a side from being cached.

Re:robots.txt

[roman_mir]

Exactly, let sites to OPT INTO being scanned/indexed/cached rather than having to opt out of it. But not everyone is cool with that idea. It would be all great and wonderfull if there were no corporations on line that made profit from the users but that's not the case. Once someone starts making money, questions start getting raised. Using someone else's copyrighted material by insisting that the party involved opted into it by posting the content on lines is all good and dandy until you start making profit. The content allows Google to attract more customers, who will see more ads, which will make Google more money. I think this is where the lawyers come into the game. There is nothing unnatural about it, probably large corporations will have to make stricter rules on how they use web information.

Time to tighten the belt

[sd_diamond]

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.

Lazy belgian webmasters (use robots.txt)

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just use robots.txt?

Could it be that they actually WANT to be available to search engines? Can't have it both ways.

[from google's blog]

If publishers do not want their websites to appear in search results, technical standards like robots.txt and metatags enable them automatically to prevent the indexation of their content. These Internet standards are nearly universally accepted and are honored by all reputable search engines.

In addition, Google has a clear policy of respecting the wishes of content owners. If a newspaper does not want to be part of Google News, we remove their content from our index--all the newspaper has to do is ask. There is no need for legal action and all the associated costs.

Re:Lazy belgian webmasters (use robots.txt)

[Keweenaw]

A link to Google's full response on their blog.

I would tend to agree with Google that a lawsuit was not necessary. Too often I see a lawsuit where a simple direct contact would have been sufficient. I do not claim to be familiar with the specifics of this case...so sue me (that's a joke).

Re:Lazy belgian webmasters (use robots.txt)

[Anonymous Coward]

How about lazy Google policies?

Maybe Google should be kind enough to ask permission in the form of webmasters creating robots.txt instead of just assuming that anyone who doesn't go out of their way to satisfy Google's policy is an open target?

This is like you crossing a stranger's property... in all human decency it's normally to ask before crossing, not crossing the land and bitching at the owner that if he didn't want people to cross his land he should be putting up fences.

It's this lack of common sense and common courtesy that is making society into the shithole it is today.

Re:Lazy belgian webmasters (use robots.txt)

[NetSettler]

Why not just use robots.txt?

This seems an unfair question. Suppose a group of robbers is robbing my neighborhood and I find one of them and take them to court. Suppose they say "We have a well-established policy that if you don't want your house robbed, you should leave a note to that effect tacked to your front door." Even supposing they have, in fact, well-advertised this policy, does that make it my fault for not putting up such a note?

robots.txt is an internet protocol issue, and an informal one, and no robot is obliged to heed it. That Google does and others don't is certainly good, but that doesn't mean they haven't violated the law because they've provided a way of people opting out of what they do. To my non-lawyerly understanding, copyright license can't happen by accident or some informal gesture, it requires actual permission. So if there is a violation, the violation doesn't seem to be mitigated by the practice of the offender of creating their own out-of-band mechanism not prescribed by law.

It might be that this is fair use, of course. That's a separate question. But fair use doesn't hinge on the availability of opt-out (i.e., availability or absence of a robots.txt), at least not in the US. You might argue a fifth criterion should be adopted, as has sometimes been argued for other reasons, but I don't see it there as a reliable element. So any fair use argument has to be made, it would seem to me, on the basis of whether the a priori use is fair, whether or not the author is capable of engaging a private cease-and-desist order absent court assistance.

To say otherwise is to say that a defense against any lawsuit would be a claim that the party would stand down if you just complained to it. The problem with this posture, much though it might reduce load on the courts, is that it makes it impossible to bring a case against people who prey only on the weak. There are plenty of people who don't know or care to contact their oppressors, and yet you can't say that it's ok to keep preying until a complaint is made, and moreover that a formal complaint will be dismissed merely because a lighter weight complaint could have worked.

There's also the issue of fair use itself based on content. I'm mixed on this, having been in journalism myself and having been on both sides of this. On the one hand, Google provides a possible advertising service; that's in Google's favor. It's opt-out rather than opt-in; that's not in Google's favor. They use a certain amount of the story they have farmed from elsewhere. To the extent that text is small, that's in Google's favor. To the extent that some people only want a small blurb anyway, that's not in Google's favor, since many news organizations present themselves as portals themselves, and Google may be detracting from that. (You might legitimately disagree, but part of what's at issue in this case is whether the infringer gets to decide. The whole notion of freedom surrounds "whose freedom", and present copyright law says it's the content creator's choice. If you disagree, argue for changing the law, not for willful violation... which seems to me to be just advocating lawlessness.)

The problem is that Google is doing a service, but it is not charging the people who benefit. Rather, it is "taxing without representation" the other services on the web, taking incremental value from them in order to provide its own at no cost. Its opt-out nature, its indirect charging, etc. all contribute to a weird sense of unease about it all.

I'll close on the issue of "chilling effect" with this Supreme Court case, which may or may not be directly relevant, but which informs my personal sense of unease. The fact patterns don't exactly overlap, but I feel obliged

Re:Lazy belgian webmasters (use robots.txt)

[Anonymous Coward]

If publishers do not want their websites to appear in search results, technical standards like robots.txt and metatags enable them automatically to prevent the indexation of their content. These Internet standards are nearly universally accepted and are honored by all reputable search engines.

In addition, Google has a clear policy of respecting the wishes of content owners. If a newspaper does not want to be part of Google News, we remove their content from our index--all the newspaper has to do is ask. There is no need for legal action and all the associated costs.

if you don't want us stealing all your stuff at your vacation home, please post a "no trespassing sign."

in addition, thieves.com has a clear policy of respecting the wishes of home owners. if you don't want to be robbed or are upset we stole your 50" plasma, just drop us a line and we'll be sure to avoid your house and return that plasma.

there is no reason to charge us with a crime and sue us civilly for stealing your stuff. what are you, animals or something?

google is surely playing naive here. the laws aren't written so that a company like google can break them at will and require the offended companies to ask them to stop breaking the law... nah, doesn't work like that.

as for why sue? they surely can't be so dumb as not to realize $32k a day isn't a reason to sue...

the scary thing is that a precedent has been set and now ever content provider can sit back and count $32k per day and file suit when the numbers start looking right... like several hundred million dollars per infringed party.

google has an INCREDIBLE liability here... and the absence of incredible pain is due to the goodwill of other corporate leaders...

caveat emptor.

This looks familiar

[EzraSj]

I recall seeing this exact situation played out in some flash video that was trying to predict the future of the internet, google in particular. Anyone else see it? The only difference was that in the video it was the NY times that was suing google.

The problem is one of money.

[Anonymous Coward]

If I have a news article on my site, I want people to come to my site to read it. Why? Simple. I got advertising up there. However, when people don't come to my site, I lose money. And if they're going to google instead of my site for the story, then I do blame google. Personally, I've got my eye on Sentinel from http://www.blogwerx.com/ - they were at the Demo Conference this year, and I'm looking forward catching me some sploggers!

Re:The problem is one of money.

[Anonymous Coward]

BS. you don't "lose" money, actually you don't earn the money you intended to make with ads (aka smokepipe). that's very different. same as music "stealers" who wouldn't buy music anyway.

Some important facts.. and Microsoft..?

[Dretio from Belgium]

Fair use & copyright are "unkown" terms in Belgium (and most of the non-anglosaxon world), but we have equal (or more) rights for authors AND users. It's only a difference of naming the whole thing.

Authors, artists & producers.. have a lot of rights in Belgium, but users (listeners, etc..) can freely use excerpts, quotes, etc.. for schools, reports, books, scientific research. We even have the right to copy a cd for personal use..

Other important things about this topic :

• it's only a minority of the Belgian press who went to court
• the others (Flemish part) all have nice deals with Google
• Google has a lot of legal ways to counter this ruling, this is not the end..
• the expert who assisted the judge was a former MICROSOFT employee

And please, stick to the main topic. Belgium is a small, but beautifull country full of the best beer in the world, best chocolate.. and a governement existing of socialists AND right wing liberals.

Re:Some important facts.. and Microsoft..?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent Informative or Interesting

It's about the money I suppose - some news sources couldn't get their deals with Google or the Microsoft angle.

But what about the legal side? Is there a fear that anyone can just link to your site with unkind intent? To make a ruling stick, if Google has to stop, that's a big precedent.

Re:Some important facts.. and Microsoft..?

[Delirium Tremens]

FYI, the world 'liberals' does not mean the same thing in the US and in Continental Europe.
In the US, liberalism is a philosophy against conservatism. It is very much a left-wing trend.
In Europe, liberalism is against conservatism and socialism. And in certain European countries, it is also a movement against Christian Democrats. It is basically a right wing philosophy without the religious, puritain and traditionnalist trend founds in the US right wing.

links?

[Bizzeh]

Google will be forced to pay $32,600 for each day it displayed the links of the plaintiffs

linking to an external site doesnt break a copyright, if the site that is being linked to has the system in place to disable a page after a certain amount of time (which is what the whole argument is over). so, google can link to the pages all they want, as long as they dont display any of the material longer than it is publicly available on the original site.

OLD SCHOOL

[kurtis25]

This is just another good example of companies who want to live in the old way the are used to doing business. Sure their profits are shrinking but they will shrink just as fast if Google doesn't use their news. I would guess (based on no facts) that this will hurt them, it will only cut the number of people that have the chance to get to their site which means less ad revenue for them. Google news is more like the yellow pages than anything. I look up what I need then call them or in this case go to there site to meet my specific needs.

makeup states?

[edward2020]

You do mean 'rogue' don't you? Or is this some joke that sailed above my head?

Re:makeup states?

[Anonymous Coward]

He was poking fun of the GP's use of "rouge" instead of "rogue".

Re:TIPPITY TOP TROLL TIPS!

[sgtrock]

Howdy folks.

It's time for today's top Slashdot humor tip. When someone references HHGTG, make sure that you understand the reference before slagging the OP. :)

=====> Joke

    O
  / \
/ | \
  / \

BOYCOTT Agence France-Presse.

[Anonymous Coward]

BOYCOTT Agence France-Presse.
** BOYCOTT Agence France-Presse. **
-- BOYCOTT Agence France-Presse. --
## BOYCOTT Agence France-Presse. ##

(use robots.txt)

[rhyre417]

It's not just google, every reputable search engine honors robots.txt, and it's just common sense for a webmaster to use that mechanism. Otherwise, it's death by a thousand cuts if every web site and every search engine used different mechanisms for enforcing opting out. (I won't debate opt-in vs. opt-out here, that's a different issue)

The best analogy is not a fence, but a "no trespassing" sign. If you put up that "no trespassing" sign using the robots.txt file/Robot Exclusion Protocol, then you do expect people to honor that.

If you put a site up on the public internet, you would commonly expect people to visit it and do search-engine-like things to it (including saving a copy to disk).

My US version of Google News does NOT offer links to cached articles, as Google's traditional search engine does.

http://www.out-law.com/page-7759 has a good summary

Time for Freedom Waffles!

[Anonymous Coward]

After all this was so successful with French fries...

Tom is a big fairy

[Hognoxious]

People may make fun of the kid who takes his marbles and goes home, but only an idiot like you would claim he needs a Court's permission to do so.

... or indeed equate refusing to do business with someone (in compliance with that person's request) with "using force". Talk about over dramatising.

I'm sure Google can implement a solution

[syukton]

Google is run by a lot of really bright people. It would be seemingly trivial for them to develop a natural language parsing engine that would "rewrite" the introduction or summary for linked stories. Perhaps even condense them so that a realistic summary will fit in the few lines provided for each story on google news. After all, copyright law is only violated when something is copied verbatim; if it is rewritten, then no actual copying takes place. You may run into some issues regarding the thumbnailed images but I think that, too, could be overcome (make them greyscale and cropped differently, for example).

Re:I'm sure Google can implement a solution

[Nasarius]

Have you studied computational linguistics at all? It is far from trivial to summarize arbitrary text accurately.

Re:I'm sure Google can implement a solution

[petsounds]

All they have to do is run the text through their English -> Arabic translator and then back to English. (for some reason the Arabic translator does a better job of keeping the general meaning of the original phrase better than their other language translators)
That will be enough to make the story partially readable, but moderately different.

For instance I put in a current headline: "US Troops Raid Shiite Areas of Baghdad"

And got back: "American forces raid Shiite areas of Baghdad"

Of course, it's not always that intelligible, but hey..it's a start.

Re:I'm sure Google can implement a solution

[Tacvek]

All they have to do is run the text through their English -> Arabic translator and then back to English. (for some reason the Arabic translator does a better job of keeping the general meaning of the original phrase better than their other language translators) That will be enough to make the story partially readable, but moderately different.

For instance I put in a current headline: "US Troops Raid Shiite Areas of Baghdad"

And got back: "American forces raid Shiite areas of Baghdad"

Of course, it's not always that intelligible, but hey..it's a start.

Some interesting translations though the other filters and back:
Chinese (either simplified or traditional): U.S. forces bombed Baghdad Shiite district
German: US troop assault Shiite of ranges from Baghdad
Japanese: The american troop air-raids the Baghdad Shiite area
Korean: The american unit attacks suddenly Shiite areas of Baghdad
Russian: U.S. troops raided the Shiite areas of Baghdad

The Korean result was one of most reasonable translations besides the Arabic and Russian, although this might be because it could not find a translation for Shiite. I think the best was the russian. A tense change and an optional article ("the") was added.

Re:I'm sure Google can implement a solution

[Clujo]

What did the French translator come up with?

Re:I'm sure Google can implement a solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of derivative works?

You must be joking.

[jotaeleemeese]

What defines a Socialist country is who owns the means of production and the lack of right to private property.

High taxation, bureaucracy and big public sector are not characteristics exclusive of a socialist country.

Heck, taxation, as a matter of fact, can be low or non existent in a socialist country, since all the services provided by the state do not need to be paid with taxes, but with production output.

oldnews

[AlgorithMan]

That was about a year ago... and google delisted all belgian sites the same day... serves them right...

by the way this ruling did NOT have chilling effects on fair use rights on the web in the rest of Europe...

I totally agree!

[N3wsByt3]

"Google is using copyrighted material to turn a profit"

Of course, it's copyrighted material, even if they don't make a profit. I mean, you are aware that copyright handles the right to copy, and not whether you make a dime of it? For instance, if I was copying a book and gave it away for free, it STILL would be copyright-infringement, and the authors still could sue me.

Therefor, I'm glad to see you are a staunch believer in protecting copyrights. This post you are reading, btw, is also copyrighted. And your browser just made a copy of it.

Feel free to pay me 2,6 euro for the copyrights of this post. Thank you! :-)

I dont get it

[SoulRider]

are business schools really churning out graduates that are this stupid? Are they actually teaching people that litigation is a valid income generation model? Its free adverstising for gods sake, not lost revenue. Doesnt anyone see the flawed logic in the lost revenue thinking? 1) Its free advertising, my guess is a link on google news actually brings in more revenue and 2) Who the hell would come to your lame ass news site if they werent referenced to it from google? I know I wouldnt go to half the news sites I go to if they werent referenced on google news, because I never would have heard of them. I can understand the *IAA using this kind of flawed logic, snorting coke off of hookers asses all day has to have an detrimental effect on a persons cognitive processes. But this? This is just ridiculous. I hope they go out of business.

Go Ahead Make My Day Copyright Holders

[kwrxxx]

I hope that dozens of media outlets across Europe block all search engines from listing them. That way their web sites will become cob webs and smarter media will allow search engines to freely list their web site and drive tons of traffic to their web site. Face it Google, MSN and yahoo are providing free advertising to these media outlets.
  A smart business man in Belgium will set up a site and allow the search engines to freely list the articles and media content and drive the rest of the media out of business.

Re:Slashdot found guilty of editorialism violation

[Vivieus]

I suppose you were being humorous, right? They're the same case, just read TFAs. Or check http://googleblog.blogspot.com/

More typos

[nurb432]

Grrrr...

But it did make it pretty funny :)

OSTG, beware!

[markusbkoch]

You better not be making money out of Slashdot ;-)
http://www.pronetadvertising.com/articles/what-the -google-decision-means-for-social-media.html

Help the users place the appropriate blame

[tepples]

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. What if instead of bringing up nothing, Google brings up pages on Wikipedia and Chilling Effects Clearinghouse first and CNN's front page (not a specific section or story) below those but still on the first results page?

Open another page

[tepples]

God DAMN it, what do I gotta do to get rid of the one minute 'Slow Down Cowboy' limit here? While you wait, you can make a new tab and open another page such as the last Slashdot story that covered the Google Cache angle. And always open "Reply to This" in a new tab so that you can scroll down and make sure that someone didn't already state your idea better.

Copyright in red China?

[tepples]

Well, "rouge" states do tend to be more obsessed with IP rights. "Rouge" is French for "red". Outside 21st century U.S. politics, "red" indicates communism. Communist countries such as People's Republic of China and ex-communist countries such as Russian Federation (formerly the dominant republic of the USSR) haven't shown as much obsession with copyright as the United States and the countries of western Europe have.

Because it builds the Google brand

[tepples]

a quick look at Google News shows that Google doesn't have a *single* ad on their news page. Google News has a big honkin' ad for Google Web Search right at the top.

/robots.txt and meta elements

[tepples]

Maybe Google should be kind enough to ask permission in the form of webmasters creating robots.txt Only the administrator of a host has the authority to modify /robots.txt (note the initial slash). Web publishers who use, say, GeoCities or the web space included with most ISP plans do not have the authority to modify files in /, only files in /~tepples. Such publishers rely on meta elements, and when meta elements are not present, web copynorms and the default rules specified by 17 USC 512 and foreign counterparts should take precedence.

instead of just assuming that anyone who doesn't go out of their way to satisfy Google's policy is an open target? The /robots.txt and meta element protocols have been around for nearly a decade. Specifying rules in a meta element is no more going out of one's way than specifying a stylesheet in a link element.

This is like you crossing a stranger's property... in all human decency it's normally to ask before crossing Unless one is crossing the property on a sidewalk that runs through the property.

News aggregates illegal in belgium?

[Steeltoe]

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, because to get the story, or get any meaning out of it, you need to click the link. Such short snippets should be ruled as fair use, and the Google News should really be longer to be actually readable, but IANAL or a judge for that manner, so who can fathom the reasoning behind it?

But of course, there will always be rulings going against common sense, but today, it will get more light and fame, so there are really more checks and balances today than say 100 years back.

Maybe Google should just stop the feeds for those agencies that are suing, and when they see their traffic fall, they will beg to be listed on Google again. I remember this happened for some similar scenario of linking to news a year ago or so.

No reasoning for some

[Karem Lore]

This just won't stand up in higher courts, it can't. The net would fall over if this case stands the appeal. This would mean that any online search engine that returned snippits of the site (google, MS, Yahoo, Altavista etc. etc. etc) would be in contravention of copyright. Are we going to have search links returned and that is all? How useful would THAT be...NOT.

How about quoting? Is this no longer alowed outside the educational realm? If I quote someone as part of a link, that would be wrong? Slashdot is in for it then too.

This is bigger than on the face of it seems and it is merely the newspapers attempt to get some of google's cash, which is ok by me cause google should just cut them off and blacklist them. Bye bye paper goodbye.

Karem

Grow up!

[Ben Feldman]

What the hell is wrong with these Belgian newspapers?

Their own damn fault for putting RSS feeds and all that stuff for Google to find.

This Frantic Industries (http://franticindustries.com/blog/2007/02/14/no-l inks-no-web/) post gives a good parallel to this:

It's like giving away apples but then complaining if the guy you gave the apples to gives them away to someone else. Who are they gonna sue next, the RSS readers like Bloglines for picking up their content?

Seriously, guys. Grow up.

Forced?

[Quixadhal]

"A court in Brussels, Belgium..."

"...Google will be forced to pay $32,600 for each day..."

Ummm, how exactly are they going to FORCE Google to pay? I suppose Belgium could force Google to close any branch offices they might have in Belgium, and they could certainly take China's approach of setting up a national firewall to try and keep traffic to Google blocked... but forcing them to pay? They can bombard the Google headquarters with legal requests, and spam the US courts to try and bring a suit against them in the US, but what else can they actually do?

One supposes the Dictator of Sealand could decide he hates Microsoft and will FORCE them to pay $1000 a day until they fix the product they sold him?

Re:Forced?

[ThisIsNotMyHandel]

who really cares about belgium? how much market share does belgium represent to google? !%? google should just pull out of belgium. question of the day: if google de-indexes all things belgium does belgium exist?

Re:Forced?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details? q=&url=google.be

Alexa ranks the Belgian google site as the 267 th site on the internet. Higher than slashdot, so I think it would still matter to google, every dollar counts.

Google should just make Belgium go dark.

[mrmeval]

If you can't trust them in one area why trust them at all. Why take a chance? Just flush the cache and don't spider the entire country ever again. Of course you also don't want to have the cache tainted by them so you block anyone who even thinks of having Belgium URLs or content on their site.

Google should have done this to the pr0n industry as well. ..."Of course you can _opt in_ for a small fee"...

In the free world

[WetCat]

Everyone should have a right to copy.