By Kate Norton
NewsFactor.com
Published:P 9/28/2006
Excerpt:
Google's news search has been grabbing lots of headlines of late, but
for all the wrong reasons. In early September, a Belgian court ruled
that the search giant could not reproduce certain copyrighted titles
and summaries on its Belgian Google News or Google.be Web site,
throwing into question the entire concept of online news aggregation,
and even search indexing. ...
... But Belgium is "a chink in the armor," says copyright attorney Lee Carl
Bromberg, a partner with Bromberg & Sunstein in Boston, who is not
involved in the litigation.
Bromberg thinks the case is "a serious problem" for Google,
which has always relied on indexing Web pages and online content for
free under so-called fair use provisions. Google has taken a "somewhat
aggressive approach on copyright," he adds. In the future, Bromberg
says, Google may need to make "an acknowledgement of the copyright and
perhaps some sort of payment for the usage."
Indeed, if the Belgian ruling is upheld, or if similar cases are filed
and won in other jurisdictions, it could have far-reaching implications
for the future of all content aggregators, not just Google. "If I were
a press body and wanted to stop [content aggregation], I would tout
this decision," says Matthew Harris, a partner at Norton Rose, a firm
of solicitors in London. ...
... To some observers, it's baffling that publishers would want to forfeit
such a critical driver of Web traffic. "I don't see a stampede" to shut
off aggregators, says
Howard Finberg, director of Interactive Learning
at the Poynter Institute, a training center for journalists. After all,
publishers have the ability to exclude themselves from search, Finberg
notes. And "most site editors are watching their traffic and seeing
where it's coming from," he adds.
More of this article...Search Google News for more quotes by Howard Finberg...
