Media companies in copyright pact, Google absent
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Viacom Inc , Walt Disney Co  , Microsoft Corp  and other media companies have  agreed to a set of guidelines to protect copyrights online but  Google Inc , owner of the Web's biggest video site, was  notably absent from the pact.
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(InfoWorld) - Google violated the copyright of Belgian newspaper publishers when it posted extracts from their stories on its Google News Web site, a Belgian court ruled on Tuesday. The judgment upholdsÂ an earlier decisionÂ from the Court of First Instance in Brussels, which required Google to remove the content from Belgium's French- and German-language newspapers from its site. It could open the door to further lawsuits and limit the ability of search engines in Europe to display copyright material on their Web sites. The Belgian newspapers, represented by the trade group Copiepresse, had argued that Google profited unfairly by posting short extracts of their stories on its Web sites. Google appealed the initial judgment and the result of that appeal was announced on Tuesday. "Google cannot claim to be an exception under copyright law," the court said in its decision. Margaret Boribon, Copiepresse's secretary general, called the ruling "a very good result for us" and said it largely upholds the court's original findings in September.. Google said it was disappointed with the decision and that it planned to file a further appeal. "We believe that Google News is entirely legal," the company said. It reiterated its argument that it posts only a short snippet of newspaper stories on its Web site and that users must click through to a newspaper's Web site to read the full story. Google's lawyers were studying the judgment on Tuesday morning and were not ready to comment in detail, said Google spokeswoman Jessica Powell. The court did not affirm every part of the earlier ruling, which was issued in September. It significantly reduced the daily fines that Google was required to pay for not removing the newspapers' content from its Web site, from â¬1.5 million per day to â¬25,000 per day. Still, Tuesday's decision is a blow to Google and possibly to otherÂ search engines in Europe. Copiepresse had also complained toÂ Microsoft's MSN divisionÂ and toÂ YahooÂ about their use of its members' content, although so far it has brought legal action only against Google. Copiepresse will now go back to MSN and Yahoo and apply renewed pressure on them to remove all of its members content, Boribon said. Microsoft said Tuesday that it would provisionally remove all links to the Belgian newspaper content from its Web sites rather than become embroiled in a legal dispute. "Microsoft however underlines that these measures do not imply any acknowledgement or recognition of Copiepresse's rights and that it reserves all rights," the company said. While some newspapers clamber over each another to be in Google News, others see it as a threat to their business because users can bypass their home pages to find stories, and possibly avoid visiting their sites altogether. Copiepresse wants Google to pay a share of its advertising revenue to its members in return for using their content, Boribon said. Google responds that it helps publishers to reach a wider audience and drives traffic to their sites because users must click through to the newspapers' Web sites to read the full stories. It has called the Belgian case an important one because it "goes to the heart of how search engines work." The company has also had to delay its launch of Google News in Denmark after newspapers there demanded a system that would allow them to "opt in" to Google's service, rather than having their content trawled automatically. And a Norwegian media group has objected to the way that Google reuses their news photographs. A spokesman for the European Commission on Tuesday suggested that the Commission may take a closer look at copyright law in Europe as a result of the Google ruling. "Its something we are following with great interest but we have no specific comment at this time," said Oliver Drewes, the Commission's spokesman on copyright-related matters. (Paul Meller in Brussels contributed to this report.) Â
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In the wake of fallout over a Microsoft attorney's public comments yesterday, chastising arch-rival Google for an effort he said would undermine the rights of copyright holders worldwide, the Bavarian State Library has signed a pact with Google Book Search that will enable the search provider to index and publish online a major portion of its holdings.
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Bloomberg is running an article which quotes Google CEO Eric Schmidt&#8217;s stance on media companies and their reluctance to upload content on YouTube, despite its popularity and demand by YouTube users to view copyrighted content. &#8220;Eventually all of the copyrighted content will be available on virtually all of the sites,'&#8217; said Schmidt, who is tussling over [...]
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Firms including Viacom, Walt Disney and Myspace unite to set guidelines to protect copyright online.
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(InfoWorld) - Google Inc. sold advertising to two men who allegedly marketed an application designed to find and download pirated movies online, a business relationship that has angered big movie and TV studios, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. The extent of Google's involvement with this allegedly rogue operation has been detailed in sworn depositions taken as part of an ongoing civil lawsuit major Hollywood studios filed against these two men in October 2005. The defendants said under oath that Google assigned them account representatives who assisted them with their Google ad campaigns, including offering them credit and suggesting they use keywords like "bootleg movie download" and "pirated" to promote their Web sites, the Journal reported. A Google employee "largely" backed up the statements from defendants Brandon Drury and Luke Sample, both residents of Missouri, the Journal reported, quoting anonymous sources familiar with the case, in which some depositions have been sealed. EasyDownloadCenter.com and TheDownloadPlace.com generated US$1.1 million in revenue between 2003 and 2005, and Google received $809,000 for advertising, the Journal reported. Upon learning that the defendants used Google to market their software, the plaintiffs, which include News Corp., Viacom International Inc., Sony Corp., NBC Universal, Time Warner Inc. and The Walt Disney Co., complained to the search engine company, according to the Journal. Google responded by holding a conference call with the media companies on Friday in which it pledged to remove certain ads the companies object to, create a list of approved advertisers and stop selling keywords meant to drive traffic to pirated material, the Journal reported. Google also committed to monitor keywords more closely and to train its ad sales team on avoiding selling those types of ads. The flap comes at a time when Google is trying to negotiate with large media companies over the use of their material on YouTube's video uploading and sharing site, which Google acquired last year for $1.65 billion. Those negotiations are proving tough, as evidenced by fiascoes like this month's decision by Viacom to demand that Google remove over 100,000 of its video clips from YouTube. Viacom, whose properties include MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, Comedy Central and Paramount Pictures, gave up afterÂ months of negotiations, saying Google and YouTube proved "unwilling to come to a fair market agreement." EasyDownloadCenter.com and TheDownloadPlace.com, which are no longer operational, didn't host any movies. Instead, they sold an application for $29.95 designed to allegedly help users search for and download pirated movies from P-to-P (peer-to-peer) file sharing networks. The defendants dispute the allegations that they induced and facilitated piracy and are thus guilty of copyright infringement and unfair competition. Asked to comment about the Journal's report, a Google spokesman said via e-mail that Google forbids advertisers from using its ad platform to promote the sale of copyright infringing materials. "We are continually improving our systems to screen out ads that violate these policies," he wrote. Â
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SUN VALLEY, Idaho  - Google Inc.  took a  swipe at media conglomerate Viacom Inc. , which is suing  the Internet search leader and its video sharing site YouTube  for $1 billion over "massive copyright infringement."
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Google Inc. lost a copyright fight on Tuesday that had been launched by Belgian newspapers, which claimed that the Web search service infringed copyright laws and demanded it remove their stories.
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The case that will likely determine the future of the online video sharing industry at least, and the Internet media economy at most, has been filed. Viacom, one of the world's largest media rights holders, has sued Google in federal court in New York, seeking $1 billion in damages for an estimated 1.5 billion separate infringements of copyright.
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A Belgium court has ordered all content from French and German newspapers represented by the firm Copiepress to be pulled from the Google News Web site.  The Brussels court said the U.S. search engine is in breach of authors' rights and data bank regulations, Expatica reported Monday.
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The major networks don't stand a chance in fighting Google's video site.
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Viacom, the parent company of MTV Networks, whose Comedy Central unit produces The Daily Show and South Park, among others, has retracted its agreement with Google's YouTube unit reached last October, and is asking Google to remove videos of programming it produces from public access.
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Google News has signed a deal which it says is aimed at cutting down on multiple copies of the same story, and will give the original authors credit over those who redistribute it.
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A federal appeals court has struck a blow to the entertainment industry's quest to shut down file sharing networks, affirming a lower court's decision that companies are not violating copyright laws simply because users are trading music and movies. Defendants Grokster, StreamCast and Sharman Networks will be allowed to continue distributing their software.
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(InfoWorld) - Google Inc. has reached an agreement with two groups representing authors and photographers in Belgium that had objected to the way the company indexes and displays their content on its Google News Web site. The agreements with Sofam, which says it represents 3,700 photographers, and Scam, which represents 20,000 writers, mark the first steps by Google in resolving a copyright lawsuit that forced it to remove French- and German-language Belgian newspaper content from its Web site. On Friday, a judge in Brussels heard arguments in that case, filed by a group of newspaper publishers, Copiepresse. Sofam (SociÃ©tÃ© MultimÃ©dia des Auteurs des Arts Visuels) and Scam (SociÃ©tÃ© Civile des Auteurs Multimedia) were among several smaller groups that had joined Copiepresse in its legal action. "We reached an agreement with Sofam and Scam that allows us to make extensive use of their content," Google spokeswoman Jessica Powell said on Monday. The agreement allows Google to use content from the groups in "new ways" that "go beyond what copyright law allows," she said. She declined to say if Google is paying the groups or to provide further details. Google has signed a deal to use content from the Associated Press newswire that it described in similar language. Copiepresse has complained that Google violates its members' copyrights by indexing their content and displaying it on Google News without asking permission. Google says the use is legitimate because it shows only a snippet of news stories, and because it directs users to the publications' Web sites to read the full story. On Friday, the judge in Brussels said she would give her verdict in the case early next year. Google News has also run into trouble in Scandinavia, where it launched two weeks ago. The company delayed the introduction of the news service in Denmark after publishers there objected to having to "opt out" if they didn't want their content displayed on Google's Web site. And a publishing group in Norway has protested the use of its members' news photographs, which it says is not permitted under Norwegian copyright law. Google has declined to comment on talks with any particular publishing groups, but says it is open to discussions to resolve disputes. Â
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YouTube is offering no refuge for users who uploaded copies of Fox Television&#8217;s 24 and Simpsons according to Internet.com&#8217;s ASPnews.  A 20th Century Fox spokesperson says that Google and Live Digital have complied &#8220;with subpoenas issued by the U.S. District Court in Northern California and disclosed to Fox the identities of two individuals who illegally [...]
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Companies say they want to encourage growth of user-generated content online without violating the copyrights of the content owners.