Google vs. Newspapers: What is the Real Issue? - A Matter of Copyright?
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It may be hard to imagine, but these publications are genuinely upset that Google is indexing them without their permission. Excuse me? Have these companies never heard of robots.txt? Danny Sullivan wondered about that, and spoke with Margaret Boribon, secretary general of Copiepresse, to get a better handle on the nature of their complaint.
Boribon seemed most concerned that Google wasn’t really playing by the rules of copyright, despite the search engine’s protestations that it respects these laws. Certainly one could use robots.txt; Google doesn’t index any sites against their wills. But “If you do so, you admit that Google does what they want, and if you don’t agree, you have to contact them. This is not the legal framework of copyright,” Boribon pointed out.
So does Boribon expect Google to say “Mother, may I?” to every site before sending out its spiders? The law might call for that, but it would be a logistical nightmare. Using robots.txt is the best way to automate the process. To Boribon, this is not good enough, because it is not legally endorsed. Danny Sullivan makes the point that this will probably change with time.
But there’s more going on here than that. If it was simply a matter of making sure that Google didn’t index the sites, robots.txt ought to be the right answer. Copiepresse is seeking for its members everything that copyright implies, not just being asked for explicit permission to use the item(s) in question. “Our purpose is not to be excluded. Of course, we want to be in the system, but on a legal basis,” Boribon explained. “We want to be remunerated.”
This inspires so many reactions, ranging from “are they nuts?!” to “yes, but…” that it’s hard to decide where to begin. I want to start with Copiepresse’s attitude, which is apparently shared by the World Association of Newspapers (another group that isn’t very thrilled with Google). But before I do that, let me see if I can provide a quick layman’s explanation of copyright. (The usual disclaimers apply: I am not a lawyer, etc.).
The whole idea behind copyright is that those who put the effort into creating something should receive compensation for their efforts. If somebody uses your work without your permission – for example, if they copy your article and post it somewhere else (especially if they use someone else’s name) – you can sue them. Usually people are nicer about these things (a good cease-and-desist letter or a phone call can often be enough to get them to take it down if it’s a question of posting online). But the point, and badly oversimplified at that, is that when someone steals your work in that manner, you aren’t receiving the compensation you deserve; you’re being exploited.
And that brings us back to Copiepresse. What Sullivan took away from his interview with Boribon is that her group and the World Association of Newspapers believe that Google is exploiting their members. As near as I can tell, they seem to think that Google is making money off of their content by including it in its index, and not giving them anything in return.
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