Dec 16, 2011 at 3:56pm ET by Chris Sherman

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee abruptly adjourned today without voting on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a controversial measure that would impose radical new requirements on search engines, ISPs, ad networks and other key internet players. The hearings will resume "earliest practical day that Congress is in session" according to the chief sponsor of the legislation, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex), but with the Congressional holiday recess imminent that could be weeks from now. UPDATE: Representative @DarrellIssa tweeted that the Judiciary Committee has scheduled the rest of #SOPA markup [...]

Domain Seizures, De-Indexing And Censorship: Nevada Judge Dramatically Exceeds Limits Of His Authority

Dec 1, 2011 at 10:13am ET by Greg Sterling

There's a multi-pronged assault on the internet going on now. It comes from over-zealous legislators, the US executive branch and individual judges. There's an effort on multiple fronts to grant over-broad powers to copyright owners to instigate domain seizures, cut-off funds and de-index "rogue" websites if found guilty of "infringement," where that concept is very expansively defined with potentially disastrous consequences for free speech and legitimate internet operations. As you've no doubt read there are two pieces of anti-piracy legislation before the US Congress: SOPA and the P [...]

Google And Largest French Publisher Update Accord On Book Scanning

Aug 8, 2011 at 10:23am ET by Greg Sterling

Hachette Livre, the largest book publisher in France, has reached a book-scanning agreement with Google (actually it did last year; this is an update). The New York Times reports that while other publishers in France are still suing Google for scanning their copyrighted material without permission, the Hachette deal may provide a framework for other agreements, in France and the US. The Google book-scanning class-action settlement in the US was rejected earlier this year by the presiding judge Denny Chin, who has given the parties until mid September to come up with a new settlement framewo [...]

Google Working On Opt-In Settlement Of Book Search Lawsuit

Jul 19, 2011 at 6:57pm ET by Matt McGee

A Google attorney told a federal judge today that the two sides involved in the long-running Google Book Search lawsuit settlement are negotiating an "opt-in settlement" in an attempt to finally put the case to rest. As The Laboratorium reports, Google's attorney Michael Boni told Judge Dennis Chin that both sides "have been aiming for an opt-in settlement." That would likely please Chin, who specifically suggested when he rejected the original settlement in March that an opt-in settlement would be a good idea: As the United States and other objectors have noted, many of the concerns rai [...]

Belgian Newspapers Claim Retaliation By Google After Copyright Victory

Jul 16, 2011 at 3:57pm ET by Greg Sterling

Perhaps the lesson is: be careful what you sue for. The French and German-language Belgian newspaper consortium that successfully sued Google for copyright infringement got more than it bargained for this week. The newspapers' content has been removed not only from Google News (as desired) but the entire Google index. Now the newspapers are crying foul, saying that Google is "retaliating" against them for their legal victory. On behalf of the newspapers an organization called Copiepresse sued Google in 2006 for copyright infringement. Copiepresse claimed that links to newspaper stories i [...]

Google Fails To Sway Indian Government On Web Content Restrictions

May 10, 2011 at 2:47pm ET by Matt McGee

The Indian government has enacted tough restrictions on Internet content and publishers, ignoring objections detailed by Google in a confidential memo earlier this year. According to the Wall Street Journal, the new rules in India place what appears to be a heavy burden on websites to ban users from publishing certain types of content and to remove such content within 36 hours after government notification. The WSJ says Google disagreed with the specific wording that describes objectionable material: Google's memo shows that the company sought changes aimed at limiting its potential liab [...]

Google Appeal Fails: Belgian Newspaper Copyright Case Upheld

May 9, 2011 at 9:31am ET by Greg Sterling

The five-year saga of Copiepresse v. Google continues. The case has been in litigation in Belgium since roughly 2006. The short version of the backstory is is that regional French- and German-language newspapers (represented by Copiepresse) sued Google for copyright infringement. Not all Belgian newspapers are involved in the suit. Copiepresse claimed that links to newspaper stories in Google News were unauthorized and hurting their traffic and ad revenues. Google argued that its actions were legal under copyright law and that it was actually delivering traffic to the newspapers and thus be [...]

YouTube Users Not Thrilled With New Copyright School

Apr 15, 2011 at 1:41am ET by Matt McGee

Google (and YouTube before it was bought) has taken a variety of steps over the years to educate its users on copyright issues and discipline them when the message doesn't get through. The latest of those is being called Copyright School; it's a combination video and quiz that YouTube will force offenders to watch and pass before they'll be allowed to upload more content. How's the video going over so far with YouTube users? Like a lead balloon. As of this moment, "dislikes" are outnumbering "likes" by almost 4-to-1. There's no way to tell if they're rejecting the entire notion [...]

If Google Was New York City & Online Piracy Was Knock-Off Handbags…

Apr 7, 2011 at 12:18am ET by Danny Sullivan

Imagine my shock when I used Bing to search for "Where to buy knockoff products in New York" and found a treasure trove of information on the web leading me to an apparently little-known area of New York City where such products are available around Canal Street: Imagine my further shock to discover that major companies such as Demand Media, Yahoo, TripAdvisor and Yelp were all providing information that Bing listed on how to locate this area. Imagine my even further shock to discover that in today's US congressional hearing about fending off such intellectual property theft, no one appa [...]

Google Wants TV Show Owners To Start Tagging Video

Mar 24, 2011 at 7:34pm ET by Matt McGee

Google is encouraging TV show owners/providers to begin tagging their online videos with several new fields that can be used in both video sitemaps and mRSS feeds. The new fields include specific data for identifying the show/series title, season and episode numbers, premiere date and more. Google's blog post explains and shows the correct code in more detail. Interestingly, that blog post also begins by saying the new fields should be used "if your website is the authoritative source for the video of a particular TV show." But there's nothing stopping other sites that post unofficial TV [...]

Italians Issue Another Dubious Anti-Search Decision

Mar 24, 2011 at 9:40am ET by Greg Sterling

Earlier this year the Italian Communications Authority decided that YouTube was effectively a TV broadcaster and imposed the same rules and restrictions that apply to TV in Italy -- and potential penalties for their violation -- on Google. It said that Google is now legally responsible for any content appearing on YouTube. Now an Italian court has done something potentially much more sweeping with broad implications for search in Italy. Yahoo Guilty for Linking to Infringer Yahoo (in its capacity as a search engine) has been found liable for helping facilitate copyright infringement by index [...]

Google Book Search Settlement Rejected By Court

Mar 22, 2011 at 5:18pm ET by Greg Sterling

Remember the Google Book (Class Action) Settlement? It's been some time since there's been any news. After many months of waiting, the court handed down its decision today -- a defeat for Google and those who supported the settlement. The Authors Guild brought a class action lawsuit against Google in 2005 for "massive" copyright infringement over its book scanning project. The parties worked out a settlement in 2008 and had sought to finalize that settlement after many rounds of hearings. The settlement called for writers who objected to opt-out or be bound by its terms. That opt-out d [...]

SEO Held Liable, Fined In Counterfeiting Case

Mar 18, 2011 at 3:18pm ET by Pamela Parker

[caption id="attachment_65488" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Image courtesy Shutterstock.com"][/caption] A website builder and SEO firm has been held liable in federal court in a case in which it was accused of enabling the sale of counterfeit goods. Bright Builders faces a $770,000 fine for damages in the judgment, handed down in U.S. District Court in South Carolina last week, while its client was only fined $28,000. The lawsuit was filed by the Roger Cleveland Golf Company, which makes golf clubs and related products, accusing Christopher Prince, the owner of the copycatclub [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Legal: Copyright | Legal: Trademarks | Top News

Could The US Demand That Google Boost Hollywood Sites To Fight Online Piracy?

Mar 15, 2011 at 10:41am ET by Greg Sterling

Should the US demand that Google, Bing and other search engines give preference to "authorized" sites offering television shows and movies? At least some members of the US House of Representatives pondered the idea yesterday, during a hearing on online piracy issues. The US House Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet Subcommittee hearings yesterday on online piracy and copyright, of which PaidContent.org has a nice write-up. The entertainment industry has been lobbying heavily for more government intervention to protect their interests and these hearings would appear [...]

Little-Known Isohunt Case Attracts Google’s Interest

Feb 22, 2011 at 12:07pm ET by Pamela Parker

[caption id="attachment_65488" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Image courtesy Shutterstock.com"][/caption] Why does search giant Google care about Isohunt, a search engine that few have ever heard of? That's the question raised in a Paid Content report. Turns out Google filed a friend-of-the-court brief in a civil case against Isohunt Web Technologies, a BitTorrent site, because it's concerned the court will set a precedent it doesn't like. The copyright infringement case -- brought by Columbia Pictures, Disney, Paramount Pictures, Tristar Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox Films, U [...]

Google Removes Piracy-Related Terms From Instant Search

Jan 26, 2011 at 8:07pm ET by Matt McGee

As it promised in early December, Google has begun to remove terms associated with piracy from producing search results in Google Instant Search, and from appearing in Google Suggest. That includes searches involving the word "torrent" as well as "BitTorrent," which is both the name of a company in San Francisco that produces torrent software, as well as the peer-to-peer sharing protocol itself. Google promised this was coming in a December 2, 2010 blog post that addressed several issues related to copyright protection. The company said it would remove terms like this from autocomplete: [...]

Viacom To Appeal YouTube Lawsuit Loss

Dec 3, 2010 at 12:54am ET by Matt McGee

As expected, Viacom is planning to appeal its loss in a long-running copyright case against YouTube/Google. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Viacom may file its appeal as soon as tomorrow (Friday). Viacom sued YouTube in early 2007, claiming copyright infringement because YouTube users had posted thousands of clips from Viacom-owned programs. The case reached its first "conclusion" when Google/YouTube won a summary judgment this past June -- the judge ruling that the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act protects Google from copyright claims over the activity of its users. A Goo [...]

Google Improves Copyright Protection

Dec 2, 2010 at 3:02pm ET by Vanessa Fox

Anyone who has found that their content has been stolen (or scraped) online faces the decision of either letting it go (and using best practices that help Google rank things correctly) or dealing with the cumbersome task of filling out a DMCA infringement notice. Those who are falsely accused of copyright violations have to deal with the equally cumbersome counter-notice process. Today, Google announced on their public policy blog that they'll be launching improved tools for both to make these processes easier and to better protect copyright online (beginning with Blogger and Web Search). T [...]

Google Makes Deal To Scan Some French Books

Nov 17, 2010 at 4:12pm ET by Matt McGee

While a US court is still deciding the fate of the Google book scanning settlement, the company has announced a deal with the biggest publisher in France that gives Google the go-ahead to scan some French books. But the key word there is "some." As The New York Times reports, publishing company Hachette Livre will decide which out-of-print-but-still-under-copyright books Google will be allowed to scan and sell electronically. The Times says this is a non-exclusive deal, so Hachette will be able to make the same books available to others. Google and Hachette will share sales revenue, but no [...]

Google Creates “Source” Meta Tags To Help ID Original News Sources

Nov 16, 2010 at 12:00pm ET by Matt McGee

With the amount of content published online seeming to expand dramatically every year, Google says it's experimenting with two new meta tags that it hopes will help it identify the original sources of online content. They're called syndication-source and original-source and here's a look at what they do and how publishers can use them. What Is Syndication-Source? Web sites that syndicate their content to others can use the syndication-source meta tag to give Google a signal that theirs is the one that should be included in Google News. In a perfect world, the tag will be used by both the [...]

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