- Reuters, Monday, September 25, 2006 11:30 AM
Global publishers are banding together to face what they feel is a mounting global threat to their business: Google News. Spurred on by a recent decision that Google was infringing on the copyright of
French and German-language newspapers in Belgium by providing article snippets in search results, a group of publishers is now planning to introduce an automated service that grants search engines
permission on how to use their content. "This industry-wide initiative positively answers the growing frustration of publishers, who continue to invest heavily in generating content for online
dissemination and use," says Gavin O'Reilly, chairman of the World Association of Newspapers, the group spearheading the global initiative. He added that the system is intended to remove any rights
conflicts that could arise between publishers and search engines like Google. For example, the system might grant search engines permission to index their site, but specify that certain articles
appear for a limited time after Google pays a royalty to display that information. Google, of course, has yet to respond to any of this; it's currently appealing the Belgian court's decision. Book
publishers have also sued the Web giant for its program to digitize everything in print, for which it still has several outstanding court cases.
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