Court Slaps Google's Wrist

I subscribe to Charles Cooper's always-interesting CNET weekly "Perspective" column. He is is the executive editor of commentary at CNET News.com.

In his Oct. 20, 2006 column entitled Perspective: Web 2.0 as a metaphor for 'rip-off, Cooper writes that "A European court last month agreed with a group of regional publishers in Belgium that accused Google of ripping off their content. The court ordered Google to remove text summaries of the newspapers' articles, along with Web links to the publishers' sites."

I am familiar with Google News, which allows you to have Google track newspaper stories about any topic or anyone you want. You can have them sent to you on a daily or weekly basis. For example, if you wish, you could have Google News track articles about Count Basie or Benny Goodman or Fay Wray or whomeever. Google sends you a brief aummary of the article with links to the publication carrying the story.

The question is this: Does Google have a right to do this? The European court emphatically said, "No." Will publishers elsewhere, including the United States, sue Google to stop doing this?

Google is one of handiest sites on the Internet, and I use it often. But perhaps it is doing things that are illegal, as Napster was alleged to have done. YouTube, Google's recent acquisition, might find itself in court for what it is doing with videos.

Look at the videos posted on YouTube that we have posted below. I'd like to know how you feel about this issue, so lease post a Comment to this entry.

George Spink
Los Angeles
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