Free Republic

Google defeated in Belgian copyright case; everyone but Google loses By Ken Fisher | Published: February 13, 2007 - 11:48AM CT The group of disgruntled newspapers in Belgium that sued Google for copyright infringement has emerged victorious after a decision was granted in their favor today in court. The judgment echoes a previous ruling from the Court of First Instance in Brussels that found Google in violation of copyright law when the company published extracts of articles from Belgian newspaper publishers. Copiepresse, the Belgium copyright group representing the nearly 20 papers scandalized by Google News, now gets its wish: Google...

In other words, the AP monster has turned on its creators and is now taking their money while putting them out of business. Last September it was announced that the AP signed a contract with Google News giving its original wire stories prominence, while reducing traffic and presumably online ad revenues at AP members’ own sites. And now the AP is turning on its creators once again, this time launching a program to make its stories available on iPhones, preempting its members’ necessary efforts to restore their ability to generate and deliver their own, valuable original content. But still,...

Google deal uncovers truth that AP is now a competitor to newspapers, and papers are suckers for being members of it 9/2/07Posted by Steve Boriss in Uncategorized. trackback As reported by Jeff Jarvis and many others, Google News has just reached the incredibly obvious conclusion that its readers would rather not wade through dozens of nearly identical versions of the same original AP story that are published by its member papers. So, striking a deal with AP and three foreign wire services, Google News will now feature the originating wire service’s story, reducing the prominence and interest in similar members’ stories,...