Google Sued For Being A Scraper...

[HP11]

European publishers warned Tuesday that they cannot keep allowing Internet search engines such as Google Inc. to make money from their content.

"The new models of Google and others reverse the traditional permission-based copyright model of content trading that we have built up over the years," said Francisco Pinto Balsemao, the head of the European Publishers Council, in prepared remarks for a speech at a Brussels conference.

His stance backs French news agency AFP, which is suing Google for pulling together photos and story excerpts from thousands of news Web sites.

"It is fascinating to see how these companies 'help themselves' to copyright-protected material, build up their own business models around what they have collected, and parasitically, earn advertising revenue off the back of other people's content," he said.

"This is unlikely to be sustainable for publishers in the longer term."...Full Article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051206/ap_on_hi_te/europe_internet

[Sharpseo]

You beat me to it. Here's my post, mods delete other one pls:

Some European news groups are suing Google for $17.5 million for including their images and excerpts of their stories on Google News.



"It is fascinating to see how these companies 'help themselves' to copyright-protected material, build up their own business models around what they have collected, and parasitically, earn advertising revenue off the back of other people's content," he said.


I don't understand. They're probably getting tons of traffic from Google News, and all G is taking is a short blurb (fair use I would think), then providing a direct link to their site. Is there something I'm missing here?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051206/...urope_internet

If the guys want to sue'em, Google should ban their sites, see how much revenue they generate then.

[ly2]

If the guys want to sue'em, Google should ban their sites, see how much revenue they generate then.

thats a good point and idea! :)

who cares anyway, 17mill for google is like $100 to us, its really not much of anything...

[BigEasy]

who cares anyway, 17mill for google is like $100 to us, its really not much of anything...

Yes but if they rollover, others will have similar ideas and come after them. Besides, $17 million is still $17 million. They have to fight for their principles.

[DarrenC]

I don't understand. They're probably getting tons of traffic from Google News, and all G is taking is a short blurb (fair use I would think), then providing a direct link to their site. Is there something I'm missing here?

If the guys want to sue'em, Google should ban their sites, see how much revenue they generate then.

I agree. I've tried numerous times to get my content on Google News. People wonder why I don't want the UK to join the Euro and be joined at the hip of morons like these..

[aeiouy]

Going to help clarify fair-use even more it seems.

[Crusader]

What I don't understand is that no ads are being shown on Google News pages. If these people are concerned about people making money of off their content then they should go after every site that uses RSS feeds, to display other site's content on them. It basically amounts to the same thing....

In any case if Google didn't make people aware of their sites, they wouldn't even see the back-end of most of the traffic they are getting. This is a plain example of something that is taken way out of context or totally misunderstood.

Most webmasters would be thrilled to be featured on Google News. All except those idiots it would seem. :p

[ArtistMikeDotCom]

Related to this, I was surprised to see the following news report:
BRUSSELS, Belgium - European publishers warned Tuesday that they cannot keep
allowing Internet search engines such as Google Inc. to make money from
their content. "The new models of Google and others reverse the traditional
permission-based copyright model of content trading that we have built up
over the years," said Francisco Pinto Balsemao, the head of the European
Publishers Council, in prepared remarks for a speech at a Brussels
conference.

His stance backs French news agency AFP, which is suing Google for pulling
together photos and story excerpts from thousands of news Web sites.

"It is fascinating to see how these companies 'help themselves' to
copyright-protected material, build up their own business models around what
they have collected, and parasitically, earn advertising revenue off the
back of other people's content," he said.
=====================================

Seems to me that Google is the biggest scraper site out there. No wonder that
that don't care about other scraper sites.

[crizatu]

You should check the forums before starting a new thread

[letas]

I don't understand. They're probably getting tons of traffic from Google News, and all G is taking is a short blurb (fair use I would think), then providing a direct link to their site. Is there something I'm missing here?

He only owns half the media in Portugal. He just wants some more easy $$ / publicity ;)

[Crusader]

Seems to me that Google is the biggest scraper site out there. No wonder that
that don't care about other scraper sites.

There is a huge difference between what Google is doing and what scraper sites do. A scraper site takes all the content from another site, provides it as it's own without any credit to the real site.

Google only provides a brief description and a link to the original site.

[Seiya]

Lol yea this guy is just looking to get in toruble for publicity... suing google, what an accomplishment... he wont win, or at least as all webmasters know he shouldnt win... complaining about free traffic, what a dumbass!

[Design Agent]

I think the point is that google will "own" the news in the long term. If thats a good or bad thing I dont know.

[sachin410]

Google only provides a brief description and a link to the original site.

There is the cache too. Entire sites are available in Google cache :D .

[danimal]

entire sites, including pics, are available at archive.org... are you suggesting that should go away as well?

"scraping"... vernacular of the internet generation... american fair use allows quotes of newsworthy content that are linked to the source, but wholesale copying of every article, in its entirety, plus it's associated pics, seems questionable.

i don't know the exact basis of the lawsuit, or the applicable european laws.

[mystikmedia]

They could block the search engines if they wanted to...

[RectangleMan]

Archive.org needs to go..it's a lawsuit waiting to happen imho

Also if they can prove that google is truely making revenue on their content they have a case. If google is making money then they should kick back some. It's actually an interesting way to think of things....Google doesn't pay ANY of us for our site to be listed in their system. They are now one of the richest companies in the world while many of us struggle for our site to make $10 a month.

I really don't think they can win or even have a good case but hey..you only have to convince the judge and a few jurors. Good lawyers can do wonders. :-)

[INV]

This isnt something thats new either. Google got a lawsuit filed against them previously because of the same reason with googlenews.

[badjimmy]

Archive.org needs to go..it's a lawsuit waiting to happen imho

Also if they can prove that google is truely making revenue on their content they have a case. If google is making money then they should kick back some. It's actually an interesting way to think of things....Google doesn't pay ANY of us for our site to be listed in their system. They are now one of the richest companies in the world while many of us struggle for our site to make $10 a month.

I really don't think they can win or even have a good case but hey..you only have to convince the judge and a few jurors. Good lawyers can do wonders. :-)

It might be easier than you think, European courts do not have the jury system. So it would be enough to convince the judge. An imagine in this case what good lawyers can do

[Interlogic]

European courts do not have the jury system.
Yes we do.. I know a lot of people that have done jury duty over here...

[dracula2005]

Google should not fraud. they can afford not to. 25% net income.

[eduardomaio]

He only owns half the media in Portugal. He just wants some more easy $$ / publicity ;)

So true! He is having dificulties, his TV channel is losing revenue... A portuguese mafia guy...

Not that much to worry about. And why is he bad mouthing Google, when he as all of his media enterprises in the news.google.pt? LOL!

[torunforever]

Archive.org needs to go..it's a lawsuit waiting to happen imho

Stupidest thing I've read today.

[sachin410]

Stupidest thing I've read today.

Not really.

www.archive.org is publishing webpages without the permission of webmasters. How can you justify that ??

[eduardomaio]

Not really.

www.archive.org is publishing webpages without the permission of webmasters. How can you justify that ??

Simply block ia_archiver and your done ;)

Oh, by the way, you know that because Google, MSN and Yahoo! are using your content and acepting those links you got from those FFA and the keyword stuffing you made that you are making money selling nitrous kits, the valves and the chips, right? :D

[sachin410]

Simply block ia_archiver and your done ;)

Giving someone access to your creation and allowing others to use it are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.

Just think of it this way... you have a site abcd.com. Somebody takes all your pages and makes a new site efgh.com. On the top he adds two lines...."we found this content on abcd.com on so and so date" and then goes on to publish all your content as it is .. WOULD YOU CONSIDER THIS AS FAIR?

Just because a book is available in the market and people can buy and read it...DOES NOT MEAN ANY ONE CAN REPUBLISH IT.

Oh, by the way, you know that because Google, MSN and Yahoo! are using your content and acepting those links you got from those FFA and the keyword stuffing you made that you are making money selling nitrous kits, the valves and the chips, right? :D

What the SEs are doing in they publish only a few lines from our site...which can be acceptable under fair use doctrine.

BTW those valves, nitrous kits, chips sites arent mine and I have nothing to do with them :D