Belgian Newspapers Agree To Drop Lawsuit Over Google News After Google Promises To Show Them How To Make Money Online

from the baby-steps dept

As we've been reporting, there's been a movement underway in many countries to argue that something like Google News -- which displays headlines, brief snippets and links to full news stories on newspapers' own websites -- somehow violates newspaper copyrights. This makes no sense logically, especially given just how much those same sites likely spend on "search engine optimization" to try to get better ranked in search engines. The only explanation for it that makes sense is the most obvious one: the newspapers are struggling to find ways to make money these days, and they see that Google is making a lot. Hence: come up with a plan to force Google to fork over some of that revenue. Of course, the very first to do this -- years before Germany and France and others got into the game -- was a group of Belgian newspapers who sued Google for sending them traffic. Amazingly, a local court agreed with the newspapers and told Google to pay up. Following this, Google removed those newspapers from its index, leading the newspapers to freak out and demand to be put back in.

The somewhat acrimonious legal dispute continued, until now. Google has announced that the news publishers have agreed to a "settlement," where the terms are somewhat hilarious. Basically, it looks like they've agreed to drop the lawsuit... if Google will teach them how to make money online:

• Promote both the publishers’ and Google’s services - Google will advertise its services on the publishers’ media, while the publishers will optimise their use of Google’s advertising solutions, in particular AdWords to attract new readers.
• Increase publishers’ revenue - by collaborating on making money with content, both via premium models (paywalls, subscriptions), and via advertising solutions such as the AdSense platform and the AdExchange marketplace;
• Increase reader engagement - by implementing Google+ social tools, including video Hangouts, on news sites, and launching official YouTube channels;
• Increase the accessibility of the publishers’ content - by collaborating on the distribution of the publishers original content on mobile platforms, in particular smartphones and tablets;

It's good to see the whole thing settled, but, really, the settlement itself seems somewhat silly. Google's agreement to buy advertising with those publishers is the "payoff" bit (apparently to the tune of approximately $6 million -- and which allows both sides to claim "victory"), but the focus on effectively teaching the publishers how to "do internet stuff" just shows how ridiculous the original lawsuit was in the first place.

Filed Under: advertising, belgium, copyright, google news, internet
Companies: google

Double Standards: EU Commissioner De Gucht Is 'Innocent Until Proven Guilty'; EU Citizens Are 'Guilty Until Proven Innocent'

from the one-law-for-the-rich,-one-law-for-the-poor dept

The Belgian EU Commissioner Karel De Gucht is the driving force behind ACTA, and is apparently really keen to combat crimes like counterfeiting and piracy. It also seems he has a slight problem with the tax authorities:

Belgium’s Tax Inspection Service has accused European Commissioner Karel De Gucht of tax fraud. The service says that Mr De Gucht and his wife failed to declare the profit that they made on the sale of shares of the Vista group on which tax was due.

"Politician accused of tax fraud" is hardly news; but what is more interesting is the European Commission's reaction. Here's what it said according to the Dutch language version of the story on the site quoted above:

The Commission adds to this that De Gucht "not guilty until proven to the contrary."

Of course, you might say; after all, surely everyone is innocent until proven guilty? In fact, no:

A Party may provide, in accordance with its laws and regulations, its competent authorities with the authority to order an online service provider to disclose expeditiously to a right holder information sufficient to identify a subscriber whose account was allegedly used for infringement

Note the word "allegedly" -- not much presumption of innocence there when your details must be disclosed "expeditiously." That comes from Article 27 of ACTA, currently being pushed by the European Commission with all its might in a desperate attempt to get it ratified by the European Parliament next month.

So on the one hand, we have someone who allegedly failed to declare profits of 1.2 million euros (about $1.5 million), and who must be assumed innocent; while on the other, we have someone who allegedly infringes on someone's copyright -- perhaps by sharing a single mp3 file -- and who, by contrast, is assumed guilty. Double standards much, European Commission?

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Filed Under: acta, belgium, european commission, karel de gucht, tax fraud

Collection Society To Libraries: No Story Time For Kids Unless You Pay To Read Aloud

from the are-there-no-limits? dept

If there's a common trait of the various rightsholders groups around the world, it is their sense of entitlement. If anyone does anything with a work under copyright, they feel they have a right to regulate it and be paid for it. A good example is the claim by the Authors Guild that owners of Kindles weren't allowed to use an experimental text-to-speech feature, since that would infringe on the entirely made up concept of "audio rights" -- and hence, presumably, require further payment.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the Belgian rights group SABAM has already established itself as a copyright hardliner with its attempts to force ISPs and social networks to set up monitoring and filtering systems to combat copyright infringement. Its latest demand shows the same apparent indifference to the negative consequences of its action:

Twice a month, the library in [the Belgian town of] Dilbeek welcomes about 10 children to introduce them to the magical world of books. A representative of the library in question is quoted in the De Morgen report as saying there’s no budget to compensate people who read to the kids, relying instead on volunteers (bless them).

SABAM got in touch with the library to let them know that it thinks this is unacceptable, however, and that they should start coughing up cash for reading stories from copyrighted books out loud. The library rep calculates that it could cost them roughly 250 euros (which is about $328) per year to pay SABAM for the right to -- again -- READ BOOKS TO KIDS.

It's worth emphasizing that these are volunteers, so this is in no sense a professional "performance". It's just public-spirited people generously doing exactly what parents do when reading to their own children. Indeed, it's not hard to imagine SABAM trying to claim money for that too, one day.

Of course, if SABAM refuses to back down here, the likely outcome will be that many libraries throughout Belgium will cancel these reading sessions for children. As a result, fewer young people will be introduced to the world of reading, fewer of them will grow up to be readers, and writers will have fewer fans and less money. In other words, SABAM's attempt to extend its reach to new areas will harm not only children -- about whom it is obviously indifferent -- but also the very people it purports to serve.

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Filed Under: audio right, belgium, copyright, kids, libraries, story time
Companies: sabam

Belgian Anti-Piracy Group Facing Copyright Fraud, Embezzlement & Money Laundering Charges

from the funny-how-that-works dept

The Belgian anti-piracy group, SABAM, has been one of the most aggressive anti-piracy groups out there. The group recently lost two huge court cases in which it tried to get courts to force ISPs and hosting firms to put in place filters to stop infringement. Perhaps more controversially, the organization has tried to require social networks to pay a flat fee for all the infringement happening on their networks. A year ago, there was a story of SABAM taking cash for a band they didn't represent after a TV show played a "joke" on the group.

However, in what appears not to be a joke, it looks like SABAM and some of its execs are facing some pretty serious charges, including "falsifying accounts to cover up bribe payments, abuse of trust, copyright fraud and embezzlement," according to TorrentFreak. Apparently, according to the charges, SABAM wasn't very good at actually distributing the money it was supposed to distribute to artists. Things to keep in mind every time one of these groups insists it's looking out for the interests of artists...

Filed Under: belgium, copyright, embezzlement, fraud, money laundering
Companies: sabam

Belgian Anti-Piracy Group Threatens To Take ISPs To Court If They Don't Block The Pirate Bay; Pirate Bay Traffic From Belgium Increases

from the the-way-of-the-world dept

It really was just a couple weeks ago that the European Court of Justice ruled that requiring ISPs to filter the internet was not reasonable. That ruling was on a specific case coming out of Belgium, but it's apparently not stopping a Belgian anti-piracy group (not a party to that original case), called BAF, the Belgian Anti-Piracy Federation, from sending letters to every ISP in Belgium, threatening to take them to court if they don't block access to The Pirate Bay.

This is because a court did rule that two Belgian ISPs had to block access to 11 of TPB's domains. BAF is now warning other ISPs that if they don't do the same, it'll take them to court over the same issue, and some are already complying. Of course, as with pretty much any other block, this effort appears to be having the opposite effect. TorrentFreak asked someone from TPB about all of this:

“This will just give us more traffic, as always. Thanks for the free advertising,” we were told.

And he appears to be right.

A few days after the verdict was announced The Pirate Bay registered depiraatbaai.be, a new domain not covered by the court order. Today, just a few weeks later, this domain is already the 124th most-visited in Belgium, on its way to enter the top 100.

Indeed, the years of legal procedures and subsequent blackmailing are easily circumvented by registering a $15 domain.

It's kind of amazing that the "anti-piracy" folks still haven't figured this out yet.

Filed Under: belgium, copyright, isps
Companies: the pirate bay

Royalty Collection Agency SABAM Demands 3.4% 'Piracy License' From Belgian ISPs

from the this-still-looks-more-like-'rent'-than-a-'license' dept

It's been a rather quiet few months for SABAM, the Belgian music royalty collection agency perhaps best known (around here, anyway) for its outlandish tactics, including attempting to charge truck drivers a licensing fee for listening to the radio in their cabs and collecting fees for completely fictional bands.

SABAM has thrust itself back into the news today with a return to form, having issued an announcement stating that it will be charging internet service providers for what is, in essence, a "piracy license:"

The music group is claiming 3.4 percent of Internet subscriber fees as compensation for the rampant piracy that they enable through their networks.

SABAM pulls this 3.4% figure from an interesting source:

Sabam base their claim on a provision in the Copyright Act of 1994, which states that authors should be paid for any "public broadcast" of a song. According to Sabam, downloads and streams on the Internet are such public broadcasts, and they are therefore entitled to proper compensation. This 3.4 percent share is the same amount as the copyright fees on cable television.

Of course, this just means that all internet users, whether they infringe or not, will be charged extra for their internet service. Not only that, but a 3.4% flat rate assumes every transmission over the internet involves copyrighted material under SABAM's control. And SABAM has made it clear that, although it is using this fee as some sort of "piracy license," it is by no means saying that all users are now free to start (or resume) pirating content.

But even in the event they begin to receive payments, Sabam stresses that any compensation would by no means legalize piracy. The license fee is only meant to legitimize the ISPs part in transferring these unauthorized files.

Of course, this sort of action, if approved, would open the doors for nearly every other group of rights holders to pile on, turning the Belgian internet service into an incredibly expensive luxury, one that punishes the entirety of the population for that actions of a minority.

Even worse, it appears that SABAM is only pushing this "license" forward because it would rather just collect money than explore new options:

The decision of the music rights group to claim a share of subscriber fees comes after they were unable to reach a workable solution in direct talks with ISPs. The ISPs say they would rather focus on offering legal alternatives than quibble over piracy, a point also noted by Minister of Economy Vincent Van Quickenborne.

“The timing is unfortunate, just as Belgacom and others come to the market with a range of legal streaming services,” a spokesman for the Minister said, adding that his department would look into the legal issues.

This is just another example of the "take it out on the ISPs" thinking that tends to rise to the surface way too often with certain rights holders. Ultimately the costs will be passed on to the end user, which turns this from "us vs. the ISPs" into "us vs. our customers," and is that any way to build a relationship?

Filed Under: belgium, collection agency, piracy license
Companies: sabam

Belgian Court Orders Blocking Of The Wrong PirateBay Domain

from the the-trials-and-tribulations-of-the-technologically-clueless dept

This is fairly amusing. In the wake of a (not very amusing) ruling in Belgium that ISPs had to implement a DNS blockade of various domains associated with The Pirate Bay, some have realized that the court order failed to actually list The Pirate Bay's main site: thepiratebay.org. Instead, if you look at the details of the order, it lists out www.thepiratebay.org and a variety of other domains, but which all use www at the begining. However, TPB doesn't use www:

So obviously in defiance of that, people testing their dns servers go to the domain www.thepiratebay.org, except, thepiratebay doesn't have the www domain turned on. At one point it redirected to the main page at the url thepiratebay.org, now it doesn't probably because of negligence from the admins. What's interesting is that the court only ordered the block of the www subdomains so if an isp wants to make a fuss they should be able to avoid the penalties until a later ruling.

Of course, further showing the pointlessness of all of this is that TPB already set up an alternate domain, similar to when its faced challenges like this in the past. None of it seems to do anything to slow down TPB (in fact, it seems to help advertise it). Either way, it's yet another reminder of what happens when you have technologically illiterate judges making these kinds of decisions.

Filed Under: belgium, blocking, dns, technical illiteracy
Companies: the pirate bay

Belgian Newspapers 'Give Permission' To Google To Return Them To Search Results

from the who-did-what-now? dept

We just wrote about how the Belgian newspapers who, back in 2006, sued Google for linking to their newspaper websites. Earlier this year, the newspapers won that lawsuit, and the court ordered (as the lawsuit specifically asked for) Google to remove those sites from "all" of its sites. However, when Google actually did that, and their traffic plummeted, the newspapers started freaking out, complaining that Google was being vindictive. Talk about sour grapes from a winner. You get everything you ask for... and then you complain?

Of course, the reality is that these newspapers totally miscalculated. They wanted to have everything, which meant Google sending them all sorts of traffic... and they wanted Google to pay them for the privilege. Of course, after these complaints, it appears Google had a chat with Copiepresse, the organization representing these newspapers, and has "received permission" to put the newspapers back in the index, along with promises that they won't be sued again for copyright infringement for doing so. So what has Copiepresse accomplished? It spent five years fighting Google... and won... and then let Google immediately go back to doing what it was doing before. Nice work, guys.

Filed Under: belgium, copyright, linking, newspapers
Companies: copiepresse, google

Newspapers Win Suit Against Google, Get Their Wish To Be Delisted, Then Complain

from the the-world-we-live-in dept

For years, we've been following the bizarre legal attack in Belgium of a bunch of newspapers against Google for daring to link to them without paying. It kicked off in 2006 with a lawsuit. At the time, we couldn't believe that these newspapers seemed to actually be complaining that Google was giving them traffic, but that's what they did. And, amazingly, earlier this year, they won the lawsuit, with a Belgian court telling Google to pay up for past links -- and to remove all of those links.

So... you'd think the newspapers would be happy, right? Nope. David Muir points us to the news that they're complaining about the "harsh retaliation" from Google dropping them from Google's index.

So, let me get this straight. When Google links to them, it's "theft." But when they don't link to them, it's "harsh retaliation." How does that work?

Of course, what it comes down to is that this is all about money. The newspapers just want Google to pay up, so they pretend they're offended by the links, even though they know they need that traffic. So they sued, got their money... and are now suffering because Google won't link to them any more (under direct orders from the court). Perhaps next time, they'll think through the long term consequences of opting out of Google's index...

Filed Under: belgium, copyright, linking, newspapers
Companies: copiepresse, google

Belgian Appeals Court Says Google Must Pay Up For Linking To Newspaper Websites

from the linking-is-infringing dept

The insanity continues. You may recall that, five years ago, a bunch of French- and German-language newspapers in Belgium, represented by the organization Copiepresse, claimed that Google was infringing on their copyrights by linking to newspaper stories. The fact that they could have blocked Google if they wanted to didn't seem to matter. They just thought Google should pay up for sending them traffic, and amazingly, a court agreed. The case has gone on for years, with Copiepresse demanding a ton of cash. The latest is that -- astoundingly -- a Belgian appeals court has agreed with Copiepresse, and said that merely linking to these newspaper websites is infringement.

I guess this means we can no longer link to any website in Belgium.

In the meantime, Google has been ordered to remove any and all links to articles and photos from all Belgian newspapers (in German or French -- as the article notes, the Flemish papers have no apparent problem with Google News). Google execs seem understandably bewildered by the decision. First of all, they're sending these newspapers traffic, which you would think is a good thing. Second, for the most part (with a few notable exceptions) courts have found that merely linking is not infringement. And, most importantly, if these newspapers don't want Google linking to them, all they have to do is set up a robots.txt file telling Google to go elsewhere.

Filed Under: belgium, copyright, linking, newspapers
Companies: google