This one is headed straight to the PR nightmare bin…it is not as if the newspaper industry has a lot of good PR overflowing, and now this.
The Paris-based World Association of Newspapers (who run an excellent blog at Editors Weblog) is exploring ways to “challenge the exploitation of content by search engines without fair compensation to copyright owners.” Again, the usual litany of complaints: “They’re building a new medium on the backs of our industry, without paying for any of the content,” Ali Rahnema, managing director of the association. “The news aggregators are taking headlines, photos, sometimes the first three lines of an article — it’s for the courts to decide whether that’s a copyright violation or not.”
FT: This quote sould be a lot of fun: Gavin Reilly, president of WAN: “We need search engines, and they do help consumers navigate an increasingly complicated medium, but they’re building [their business] on the back of kleptomania.”
O’Reilly singled out Google for criticism, saying: “As a general rule, Yahoo, MSN and Ask Jeeves seem more open to constructive dialogue. It’s only Google which seems to have this absolute view.”
Editors Weblog: As one of its first steps, the group will be seeking meetings with Mr. Charlie McCreevy, European Union Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services, and Ms. Viviane Reding, the Commissioner for Information Society and Media.
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