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Agence France Presse accuses Google of copyright infringement
Update (3/23): The Washington Times is reporting that this suit could affect how blogs are able to display news stories.
Google is removing Agence France-Presse stories from Google News, but otherwise hasn't given much of a response. AFP is also suing in France, where it has stronger case.
Update (3/20): For more info, see this editorial from Bayou Buzz.
Yikes! Agence France Press has sued Google for at least $17.5 million for including its photos and news headlines on Google News. Now if you've ever used Google News, you know the site uses headlines and thumbnail photos from MANY news services, not just AFP. Unless I'm missing something here, I'd assume U.S. courts would consider this a fair use (After all, seeing the full photo or article requires leaving Google to go to the AFP site.) but who knows. Those crazy French... (They're probably feeling all cocky now since Louis Vuitton won a trademark infringement case against Google in Paris last month.) We may criticize IP law in the U.S. but the truth is that it's even worse in Europe.
Posted by carrie on 03/23/2005 | Permalink
Comments
AFP's acceptable use policy is quite clear, i guess i fail to see why everyone is rushing to side with google on this one. even an excerpt counts under copyright polcies.
Posted by: jose | Mar 19, 2005 7:10:04 PM
Under US law, when a use is fair, it doesn't matter what the copyright owner's "acceptable use policy" says. I'm not familiar with French law, but I think that's the point Carrie is making, and why we in the US tend to side with Google on this one.
Posted by: great sandwich! | Mar 21, 2005 12:14:58 AM
