[ga] Re: [A2k] Bloomberg News: Court rules Google violated copyright laws

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thiru and all,

  Seems Vint Cerf's "Internet evangelist" skills are not adequate...
Mabe a position a custodial engineer would be a better "fit"
for Vint?

Thiru Balasubramaniam wrote:

>   Court rules Google violated copyright laws
>
> Bloomberg News
> Tuesday, February 13, 2007
>
> BRUSSELS
>
> A Brussels court ruled Tuesday that Google violated copyright laws by
> publishing links to Belgian newspapers without permission and ordered
> the company to remove them, setting a precedent for future cases.
>
> Google, the owner of the world's most-used search engine, must pay
> ?25,000, or $32,500, a day until it removes all Belgian news content,
> the Brussels Court of First Instance ruled. There is "no exception" for
> Google in copyright law, the court said.
>
> The company, based in Mountain View, California, said it had removed
> the content and will appeal the ruling.
>
> The case may restrict how Internet sites in Europe link to newspaper
> content. Copiepresse, a group representing 17 French- and
> German-language newspapers including La Libre Belgique and Le Soir, had
> sued Google for copyright infringement, arguing the company should not
> be allowed to link to their newspaper content for free.
>
> "Google will have to reach a deal to make it worthwhile for newspapers
> to cooperate," David Hooper, a newspaper lawyer and partner at Reynolds
> Porter Chamberlain in London, said. "There is a tendency for Google to
> use things for free and reach a deal later."
>
> Copiepresse plans to target all search engines that offer similar
> services, its secretary general, Margaret Boribon, said in a telephone
> interview last month. Yahoo, which received a formal notice from the
> group in January, will not be the last, she said.
>
> Google postponed plans for a Danish news site last year after
> newspapers complained. In 2005, Agence France- Presse, the French news
> agency, sued Google for using its reports for free.
>
> "This judgment doesn't stop us negotiating," Yoram Elkaim, a lawyer for
> Google, said.
>
> Google News was introduced in Belgium in January 2006, showing
> headlines, photos and the first few lines of news stories with links to
> the full articles on the newspapers' Web sites. The case is part of a
> global drive by newspaper publishers to force search engines to pay for
> using their stories and pictures.
>
> The newspapers sued in September and won a court order that forced
> Google to remove all links to their content or face a ?1 million daily
> fine. Elkaim said the company had complied and removed the content. The
> editors maintain that some content is still on the systems.
>
> The company argues that using headlines and text fragments with links
> to newspaper Web sites on Google News is legal.
>
> The Belgian newspaper editors, including Franc¸ois Le Hodey, chief
> executive officer of La Libre Belgique, say their content creates
> "colossal traffic" for search engines, which is profitable only for
> them.
>
> ---------------------------------
> Thiru Balasubramaniam
> Geneva Representative
> Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
> voice +41.22.791.6727
> fax +41.22.723.2988
> mobile +41 76 508 0997
> thiru@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 134k members/stakeholders strong!)
"Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" -
   Abraham Lincoln

"Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is
very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt

"If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B;
liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by
P: i.e., whether B is less than PL."
United States v. Carroll Towing  (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947]
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