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| -Short Attention Span Theater- | |
| Agence France Presse Sues Over Google News | |
| 2005-03-19 | |
Agence France Presse has sued Google Inc. (GOOG), alleging the Web search leader includes AFP's photos, news headlines and stories on its news site without permission. The French news service is seeking damages of at least $17.5 million and an order barring Google News from displaying AFP photographs, news headlines or story leads, according to the suit filed on Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. "We allow publishers to opt out of Google News but most publishers want to be included because they believe it is a benefit to them and to their readers," Google spokesman Steve Langdon said of the AFP lawsuit. The attorney for AFP was not immediately available for comment. AFP sells subscriptions to its content and does not provide it free. Google News gathers photos and news stories from around the Web and posts them on its news site, which is free to users.
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| Posted by:Fred |
| #9 TGA - That's probably correct as far as it goes but there's an old Supreme Court case in the US called Associated Press v. United Press International that might give AFP a solid argument. Basically UPI bought early editions of papers containing AP stories on the east coast of the US, did minimal rewrites of them usong only the basic facts, then sent them along to UPI client papers in the midwestern & western US. Since facts generally aren't subject to copyright (long discussion) UPI thought they were in the clear. The S.Ct. disagreed and by judicial fiat found that news had a shelf life and prohibited UPI from free-riding on AP's news while it was still fresh. Google's use isn't perfectly analagous to what UPI was doing but they are bundling up links to news sources and using that bundle to draw traffic to their own site. Effectively they're free-riding on news sources worldwide and they aren't doing it for the purpose of comment / criticism so a Fair Use defense seems unlikely. Thus there's definitely a non-trivial argument to be made even though AP v. UPI is a somewhat disfavored precedent (I don't believe any significant case since has relied on the reasoning found therein). |
| Posted by: AzCat 2005-03-19 9:34:19 PM |
| #8 should cut down on the "IDF shot my baby" stories |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-03-19 6:29:31 PM |
| #7 Rather stupid... quoting short text excerpts or headlines will always be fair use, and minuscule thumbnails of copyrighted photos should be fair use as well. I'm not sure if the clients of AFP are too happy about this lawsuit. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2005-03-19 6:28:08 PM |
| #6 I prefer the NorKs -- they get right to the point. |
| Posted by: Tom 2005-03-19 12:12:03 PM |
| #5 well, we can always access the Beeb for our anti-american fix |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-03-19 12:09:33 PM |
| #4 There's some interesting stuff at AFP from time to time. But now, I get the feeling it's just not interesting enough. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-03-19 11:42:25 AM |
| #3 This is the 3rd or 4th French suit against Google in the last 6 months. It's how the French compete. |
| Posted by: too true 2005-03-19 11:26:20 AM |
| #2 A lot of the articles we pick up from Arab News, Khaleej Times, and Pak Daily Times are from AFP. Since the links point back to the papers, rather than AFP, I'm not worrying about them. |
| Posted by: Fred 2005-03-19 11:23:50 AM |
| #1 I had wondered what AFP was, but smelled something ... odd. Now that I know, what did the EVER have that I wanted to read? Good riddance. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2005-03-19 11:21:08 AM |