Group: Online Content Cannot Remain Free — If anything is going to kill the net and blogs and Google too, this kind of Euro-crap thinking will do it. I may make this topic nexts weeks PC Magazine essay. It’s very bad. If you do not want your material on the Internet to be searched and linked to then take it off the net, dipshit!

BRUSSELS, Belgium // European publishers warned Tuesday that they cannot keep allowing Internet search engines such as Google Inc. to make money from their content.

“The new models of Google and others reverse the traditional permission-based copyright model of content trading that we have built up over the years,” said Francisco Pinto Balsemao, the head of the European Publishers Council, in prepared remarks for a speech at a Brussels conference.

His stance backs French news agency AFP, which is suing Google for pulling together photos and story excerpts from thousands of news Web sites.

“It is fascinating to see how these companies ‘help themselves’ to copyright-protected material, build up their own business models around what they have collected, and parasitically, earn advertising revenue off the back of other people’s content,” he said.

I guess these idiots never noticed that Google just links back to the source where they — the source — get the most revenue. They should be paying Google to search their sites. Google is doing them a favor. What dopes.

This is much like saying “We can’t allow bookstores to make money from our content by selling our books.”

found by Paul T.



  1. James says:

    I suppose they could take their stuff off the net if they didn’t want people to get it for free.

  2. jasontheodd says:

    Putting something online is akin to putting something in a window. There are tools that, in affect, put a blind on that window. If, however, you aren’t sophisticated enough to use them don’t put anything in the window unless you WANT the world to see it. Those who don’t know how to drive do not get to. Those who can’t fly planes do not get to. Why should those who can’t conduct a website get to do so. Newbie mistakes are forgiveable, but you must understand the concept of the “WORLD WIDE” web.

  3. Ima Fish says:

    I think the problem is too many old people who simply do not understand what the net is. It’s a NET. It’s a WEB. It’s computers CONNECTED to each other.

    All of these publishers can easily keep their content from the public by simply password protecting it. There’s not even a need to remove it from the net. Heck, even a robot.txt file will keep Google from viewing it.

    Or maybe these guys know exactly what they are doing. Their business model is dying so they’d rather go after money rich Google than fix their problems.

    The internet was designed to survive a nuclear attack, but I doubt if it will survive greed.

  4. Mike Cannali says:

    Do these same people use google to search for US content? Perhaps on balance they are the ones benefiting without compensation, since there is a lot more web content coming out of the US than coming out of any one Euro country – or them all together.

    Perhaps what bothers the French is the results when you use Google to search for “French Military Victories”. Try the “I’m feeling lucky” button for best results.

  5. site admin says:

    I seriously think these bozos have no clue about robot.txt or any other mechanisms (there are hundreds) to keep Google from analyzing the site.

  6. site admin says:

    I swapped links with Biz Week..much better

  7. garym says:

    Again we have a case of the EU trying to decide what the law should be in the US. I’ve been to Google News, and as some of you have pointed out, when you click on a story, it takes you tot he original source…so AFP, International Herald Tribune or any other source still gets to keep their revenue from the advertising that Google brings them by linking to them.

    I wonder how many world-wide readers these sites would get if Google didn’t include them? Would they then sue for lack of inclusion?

  8. Angel H. Wong says:

    That’s because it’s written as Robots.txt and you have to rename it in French.

  9. Luís Camacho says:

    “said Francisco Pinto Balsemao, the head of the European Publishers Council”

    This a$$hole is a theif, he stole loads of money when he was in the government! And now he ….. ARGH!! It’s too much for me!

    I FOR ONE HATE ALL AND EVERY SINGLE POLITIC!

  10. Imafish says:

    “I swapped links with Biz Week”

    And the irony is that I found that alternative link via Google News.

  11. andrew says:

    Wow, isnt it interesting that these are the same people who tried to wrest control of the Internet from the US

  12. Miguel says:

    Balsemao is a portuguese asshole… Like all portuguese politicians – ok, maybe *all* politicians… Did I say ‘maybe’?

    Luis is right, all politicians in this country are here only to favor interest groups – including theirs. Not to work for us, the people. And now, this mafia is leading the Parlament, and Europe… The generation that survived the concentration camps, with all their humanistic and democratic ideology is gone.

  13. Tim says:

    Either use robots.txt as has already been mentioned enough times, and/or password-protect the parts of the site that you don’t want indexed, too.

    And yes, it makes me think that maybe the response is for google to stop providing these idiots with a free information service, see how they like it, too.

  14. Mike Voice says:

    It reminds me of the legal battle between Microsoft and TicketMaster – years ago – over “deep linking”.

    Microsoft wanted Ticketmaster on M$’s “Sidewalk” portal.

    TicketMaster couldn’t care less. They knew people had little choice but to find them – whatever web-address they were at.

    M$ wanted to charge TM for providing more “eyeballs” via Sidewalk.

    TM wanted to charge M$ for providing revenue-producing content to Sidewalk.

    No compromise was reached, so M$ starts advertising concerts on Sidewalk, and “deep-linking” to the ticket windows on TM’s site – bypassing several pages of TM’s ads.

    TM was still getting the transaction, but sued M$ for bypassing TM’s ads – while showing the customers ads on Sidewalk, of course. 😉

    If that wan’t the start of the “arms race” to protect online content from “unauthorized” access, it at least brought the issue to wide-spread attention.

  15. Mike Voice says:

    Again we have a case of the EU trying to decide what the law should be in the US.

    While the US govenrment uses trade agreements to get other countries laws “in alignment” with US law.

    i.e. copy-right protections, extensions, and DCMA-like laws to protect the entertainment industry.

    Links:

    http://www.drmwatch.com/legal/article.php/3311921

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_Copyright_Directive

  16. Marco says:

    this kind of Euro-crap thinking will do it

    I don’t condone this kind of thinking, but it seems to me that it follows directly from the kind of US-crap thinking that started the RIAA and MPAA copyright models in the first place. The US should be happy that Europe is following them and opening up shiny new lamebrained roads to the future.

  17. site admin says:

    This is not correct..in fact most of the onerous copyright stuff has been led by Europe and WIPO. The USA is a follower in many regards. EXACTLY WHY we are a follower might be blamed on those organizations AND the SBA.

  18. Joe says:

    Unfortunately, The bigger a company gets, the more capitalistic it gets.


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