French Court Forcing Google To Remove Word 'Scam' From Google Suggest

from the public-interest? dept

Last year we wrote about two contradictory rulings in France involving lawsuits by companies upset about how Google Suggest works. As you probably know, as you type a query into Google, it tries to "suggest" the rest of the query, based on common searches beginning with what you typed. This is all done automatically and is an algorithmic function of what people are actually searching on. The "problem" was that in one case, people were searching for the name of a company, Centre National Prive de Formation a Distance (CNFDI), and one of the most popular searches, meaning one of the suggested searches, was to follow CNFDI with "arnaque," which means "scam." In one case, from a company called Direct Energie, the court ruled that it was Google's fault -- and oddly blamed the fact that the results were not alphabetical to suggest Google was at fault. The better ruling came in the CNFDI case where the court pointed out that search engines are "important tools for the free circulation of ideas and information," and the fact that many people were questioning whether CNFDI was a scam was, in fact, important and potentially useful information, and thus not libelous by itself. It also said that the burden on free speech would be too great if Google were forced to remove the suggestion.

So much for that ruling. Reader Mike Read has sent in the news that an appeals court has reversed the CNFDI ruling and found Google liable. Its reasoning is that Google lets people alert the company to "offensive" terms in Google suggest, and it believes that "scam" is an offensive term. I have to question that logic. If people are legitimately concerned that there are scams going on, why shouldn't that be expressed?

Filed Under: defamation, france, google suggest, scam
Companies: cnfdi, google

France's Three Strikes Enforcement Agency... Pirated A Font For Its Logo

from the oooops dept

We've been highlighting how Nicolas Sarkozy -- who was the original strong supporter of "three strikes" proposals to kick people off the internet based on accusations (not convictions) -- and his political party have been caught time and time again infringing on the copyright of others. It looks like that's happening again in an even more embarrassing fashion. The organization that's been designated to deal with three strikes in France, Hadopi, unveiled a new logo... that used an unlicensed font, that had been created by France Telecom and had not been licensed for use by anyone else. Hadopi had to scramble and try to find a new font once called on this, and issued an "apology," but will it allow those accused of infringement online the right to "apologize" as well?

These may seem like minor issues, but they're actually quite instructive. The point is that due to the way copyright law is set up, people infringe unintentionally all the time. Even the biggest defenders of copyright do so. And that is the problem with any sort of system that punishes people for something as minor as three infringements -- and it's even worse when its three accusations of infringement, rather than actual convictions. It creates a massive liability for the way everyone -- even copyright defenders -- do things every day. But, of course, the big powerful folks -- the ones who passed and support this law -- can just apologize and ignore the consequences. Everyone else? Good luck.

Filed Under: copyright, fonts, france, hadopi, hypocracy, three strikes

France Considers 'Right To Forget' Law, Apparently Not Realizing The Internet Never Forgets

from the good-luck-with-that dept

Hot on the heels of France considering laws to tax successful internet companies to try to prop up unsuccessful entertainment industry companies, comes a report that France is also considering a special "right to forget" law, which would allow anyone to ask that any information about them be deleted after a certain period of time. At first, I though that they meant content created by the person asking for it to be deleted (like emails), but it sounds like they mean any content about a person. So, say, if you did something embarrassing in college, and your friends put pictures of it online, once the time limit for the "right to forget" law kicked in, you could demand every version of that picture be taken offline. Yeah. Like that will work. Trying to suppress information online doesn't work, no matter what law you put in place. I'm reminded of the convicted German murderer, who is demanding that information on his conviction be removed from Wikipedia under a similar type of law. All that did was call a lot more attention to the story.

Filed Under: defamation, forget, france, internet, right to forget

France's Latest Plan: Tax Google, Microsoft And Yahoo To Fund Record Labels

from the you-can't-make-this-stuff-up dept

If you thought France had already gone off the deep end with its plan to kick file sharers off the internet, now comes the news of a government report that suggests a new plan: tax successful big internet companies, like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft and use that money to fund the "music and publishing" sectors (which basically means the record labels). We've been pointing out how all of these attempts to bolster copyright laws have really been about propping up businesses that haven't been able to adapt, but is there any more blatant example of this than taxing the companies that have figured out how to use the internet to fund those that haven't?? This is entitlement culture in the extreme.

Apparently Nicolas Sarkozy will get "the last word" on whether or not to adopt this policy, which means that it's pretty likely. Sarkozy -- who has a long history of copyright infringement by his own party -- seems to believe that stronger copyright means defending French culture, when it really just means handouts to a few failing businesses who haven't wanted to adapt.

Update: Really good point made by Andrew F in the comments:

The Zelnick Report says the tax would kick in anytime an online ad or sponsored link is clicked in France. One of the most controversial items in the report is that it calls for a company to be taxed regardless of where it is based.

If that's legal, it's rather frightening. Nearly any website with ads could be taxed if visited by the French. Just wait for sites to start setting up IP filtering that blocks all French users.

Filed Under: france, nicolas sarkozy, record labels, tax
Companies: google, microsoft, yahoo

Will France's Three Strikes Law Matter?

from the we-shall-see... dept

While some are saying that France's "three strikes" law has been delayed until April due to data protection issues, others are reporting that the law is in effect as of January 1st, and people should start getting "warning" messages soon. That same article quotes a French senator who believes that 95% of people will "finish with that bad usage" after the second warning message they receive, but others figure what's more likely is that people will just move on to other ways of accessing files -- ways that can't easily be tracked. My guess is that like when Napster was shut down or with Sweden's IPRED law, there may be a temporary bounceback in sales, but as more people learn of ways to go back to accessing music for free in ways that are less likely to be caught, they will do so. Quickly. As much as the entertainment industry and some politicians have trouble comprehending this, you can't stop what technology allows.

Filed Under: france, hadopi, three strikes

Now France Fines Google For Scanning French Books

from the the-war-on-google dept

With France gearing up to dump another billion dollars at its own anti-Google book scanning project, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that a French court has ruled that Google's book scanning project violates copyright law. It's also fining Google 10,000 euros per day until it removes the books in question. Better solution: just block people from French IPs from accessing Google Books.

Filed Under: book scanning, copyright, fines, france
Companies: google

Sarkozy To Throw Another Billion At Digitizing Books

from the and-he-could-have-let-Google-do-it-for-free... dept

As a few folks sent in, Nicolas Sarkozy has pledged to spend approximately $1.1 billion scanning books. Does this sound familiar? It should. Five years ago, French officials freaked out about Google scanning all those books, and declared they were going to spend $2.5 billion on its own project, called Quaero. And what happened? Well, it turned into a huge boondoggle with a bunch of companies claiming the money, but nothing of substance ever coming from the project, which has now been mostly abandoned.

So, now we've got Sarkozy -- defender and mass infringer of copyrights -- who recently warned that Google's book scanning project was somehow a threat to French culture. So, now he's going to spend $1.1 billion more on a project that we hope will be at least marginally more well defined than Quaero. In the meantime, France's national library is apparently all set to have Google scan its collection of books. Seems easier. In fact, the report notes that the $1.1 billion will go to private companies to scan books, and it's entirely possible that Google could be one of those companies. After all, it's pretty good at book scanning.

Filed Under: books, france, nicolas sarkozy, scanning

Sarkozy's Party Found Violating Copyright Yet Again With Awful Lipdub

from the isn't-that-three-strikes? dept

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been pushing himself as a defender of copyrights, and even helped create the original three strikes plan in France. And yet, he and his political party keep getting caught infringing on copyrights. First there was the use of a song in some online videos without proper licensing. Then there was the issue with mass pirating DVDs. So you would think that his party would be extra careful when putting together yet another online video involving music. Apparently not.

In a move that is being widely mocked even by those within Sarkozy's party, it has released a lipdub video using some UMP politicians singing along. The only problem? You guessed it... the party did not properly clear the rights and now need to pay up for infringing on the copyright (Google translation from the original French). Apparently, they had licensed the rights to the original version of the song, from 1976, but then decided they didn't like that recording, and instead used a modern version of the song. According to another report, the UMP had asked the copyright holder if it could use this version, and they were turned down, because the label did not want the song used for political purposes. So Sarkozy's party just used it anyway.

I wonder if Sarkozy can blame Vimeo for inventing "lip dubs" and encouraging the UMP to violate copyright laws in this manner. But, the real question remains: given that France has moved forward with Sarkozy's plan to kick infringers off the internet on a three strikes basis, and this appears to be at least Sarkozy's third strike, does the UMP have to give up their internet access? Or do Sarkozy's favored laws not apply to Sarkozy?

Filed Under: copyright, france, lip dubs, nicolas sarkozy

Can Someone Explain How Making French Cultural Works More Available Takes Away French Heritage?

from the it's-a-simple-question dept

French politicians have been quite upset about Google's book scanning project for years. Way back in 2005, government officials announced that Google's book scanning project was a threat to French culture. Why? Because the fear was that Google would just scan English books, and ignore the French. So, the French government mobilized. Or, rather, spoke as if it was going to mobilize and tossed a pile of money at a bunch of organizations with no real mandate to do anything. As such, the project fell apart.

Of course, the French politicians are still upset about the "threat" of Google and its book scanning, but whereas the original complaint was that French books would get ignored, it seems like the current complaint is that French books won't be ignored. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, one of the earliest supporters of kicking people off the internet under a "three strikes" regime -- despite a history of copyright infringement himself -- has spoken out about how France can't let Google take away French heritage:

"We won't let ourselves be stripped of our heritage to the benefit of a big company, no matter how friendly, big or American it is."

I have to admit that I'm really struggling here to understand how Google is "stripping" anyone's "heritage" in making such works more easily accessible by everyone. In the meantime, as we noted a few months back, it appears that the French National Library agrees with us more than the government, since it signed up to have Google scan its books.

Filed Under: book scanning, copyright, culture, france, nicolas sarkozy
Companies: google

French Government's Plan To Help Book Publishers Adapt: Have Them Embrace Three Strikes Plan

from the not-exactly-adapting dept

PrometheeFeu writes "The French Minister of Culture Christine Albanel has just been assigned a mission to prepare the French publishing industry for the digital economy. The phrasing of the mission-letter makes it clear that while developing legal offerings and digitizing books is part of the plan, the focus is on getting the cooperation of publishers to enforce the 3-strike law (Google translation from the original). The language actually talks about inciting publishers to do so which leads me to wonder why the government should incite people to exercise their rights if they don't want to do so...

The letter makes it clear that IP enforcement is seen as the only way to distribute value to authors and distributors (consumers are not mentioned). Here is a choice quote:

"The government cannot accept to see another cultural industry threatened by the pillaging."

The letter also mentions the "damages observed for the music and film industries through the growth of illegal downloads." Obviously, no sources are given for that information. Most amusingly, the letter states that Christine Albanel (who kindly told us that OpenOffice comes with a firewall which would somehow block illegal downloads) should use in this mission her experience in working with the music and film industry. I like many French authors and I sincerely hope that they ignore whatever she says and instead try something which might actually work, but I'm not holding my breath..."

Filed Under: france, publishers, three strikes