Apr 6, 2010 at 8:04pm ET by Matt McGee

While Google waits for news about its proposed book search settlement with authors and publishers, it's about to face a new legal challenge. The Financial Times reports that the American Society of Media Photographers and related trade groups are expected to file a new, class action lawsuit over the images that appear in the books Google has been scanning. The Financial Times spoke with James McGuire, the attorney who's leading the ASMP's case, who said this: Google is scanning in books and publications with visual images, which impedes the rights of the copyright holders of those images [...]

Google Wins Legal Battle Over AdWords Trademark Issue In Europe

Mar 23, 2010 at 7:09am ET by Greg Sterling

European luxury goods maker LVMH (Luis Vuitton) sued Google in France over its AdWords policy allowing third parties, including LVMH competitors, to bid on its trademarked terms as keywords. The case originally arose when marketers bid on "Louis Vuitton" and turned out to be selling counterfeit Louis Vuitton items. The company won in France's highest court, even as Google was liberalizing its AdWords policy in Europe to conform to the more permissive US policy that routinely allows such third party trademark-keyword bidding. (Trademarks cannot appear in competitors' ad copy however.) Google [...]

Google-Viacom Court Documents Out; Google Says Viacom ‘Secretly’ Uploaded Videos

Mar 18, 2010 at 2:51pm ET by Matt McGee

The three-year-old lawsuit in which Viacom is seeking $1 billion from Google over copyrighted videos on YouTube moved a step forward today with the release of several court documents. The three documents unsealed today are: Viacom: Memorandum in support of motion for partial summary judgment (2.7mb PDF) Viacom: Statement of undisputed facts (5mb PDF) Google: Memorandum in support of motion for summary judgment (500k PDF) As a refresher, Viacom sued Google in March 2007 for "massive intentional copyright infringement," claiming that Google allowed thousands of Viacom videos to be po [...]

Waiting Game Begins On Google Book Search Settlement

Feb 22, 2010 at 7:00am ET by Matt McGee

The dust has settled from last week's Fairness Hearing on the proposed Google Book Search, and now all parties are playing a waiting game. Judge Denny Chin began the hearing by announcing -- to no one's surprise -- that he wouldn't be announcing a decision during or immediately after the hearing. According to the Wall Street Journal, Chin cited the "voluminous materials" submitted in the case and said he'll issue a written opinion later. "There's too much to digest," Chin said. In his coverage of the hearing, Gary Price notes that 21 of the 26 speakers during the hearing were against the se [...]

Google Gets Patent For Variable Content Access By Geography

Feb 18, 2010 at 8:58am ET by Greg Sterling

Google was grated a patent that discusses a system of determining content access privileges by country/geography. While it undoubtedly has multiple uses, Google book scanning and search appears to be the primary intended use case. ArsTechnia brings it to our attention. Here's the patent summary: A system comprising: one or more devices to implement: means for receiving a search query from a user; means for selecting a document that includes terms from the search query; means for determining access privileges to the document for the user based on geographical location information of the [...]

US Dept. Of Justice: Court “Lacks Authority To Approve” Google Book Search Settlement

Feb 4, 2010 at 8:22pm ET by Greg Sterling

With a final "fairness hearing" scheduled for February 18, the US Department Of Justice has filed briefs (PDF) in opposition to the Google Book Search Amended Settlement Agreement ("ASA"). The DOJ commends the parties for their efforts to reach an amended agreement that addresses some of the problems with the original settlement but concludes that there are still fundamental anti-trust issues with the ASA: Despite the commendable efforts of the parties to improve upon the initial Proposed Settlement, many of the problems previously identified with respect to the original settlement remain in [...]

Science Fiction Writer Le Guin Launches Petition Against Google Book Settlement As Opt-Out Deadline Looms

Jan 25, 2010 at 9:11am ET by Greg Sterling

Renowned science fiction and fantasy writer Ursula K. Le Guin has launched a petition to "exempt" the US (US authors) from the terms of the Google Book Search Settlement. The text of the petition says that "Ireland, India, South Africa, and New Zealand (countries with active publication in English) protested the settlement and have been exempted from it." Exempting the US would essentially render the settlement meaningless. The scope of the revised settlement has been narrowed to include only the US, UK, Australia and Canada and exclude other countries. There is a January 28 deadline (Th [...]

German Companies Piling On With Anti-Trust Complaints Against Google

Jan 18, 2010 at 10:32am ET by Greg Sterling

Last week, in a German magazine interview, government minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger suggested that Google was "becoming a giant monopoly." She casually asserted that government action might be coming at some point if Google didn't become more "transparent" and responsive to government concerns. Almost on cue a number of companies have filed diverse complaints with Germany's Cartel Office about Google. Those complaints, which have not yet been publicly released, involve the following, according to Deutsche Welle: German newspaper and magazine publisher associations the VDZ [...]

Google Book Scanning Faces Chinese Challenges

Jan 12, 2010 at 10:47am ET by Greg Sterling

Google issued an apology to Chinese authors, according to China Daily, for scanning their books without permission. Google has also been sued in China for copyright infringement in connection with unauthorized book scanning. Meanwhile the amended US Book Scanning litigation settlement still awaits final court approval. There are several private Chinese groups that seek apologies and compensation from Google for scanned Chinese books. Google is meeting with these groups, representing Chinese authors, to try and clear the way for more scanning of Chinese works. The China Daily article quot [...]

Proposed UK Law Would Immunize Search Engines Against Copyright Claims

Jan 12, 2010 at 9:50am ET by Greg Sterling

There's been enormous debate in the US over the years about whether Google and other search engines violate copyright laws by indexing content of various sorts. The Google book scanning litigation was a copyright lawsuit. And the newspaper industry has repeatedly accused Google of building its news site on the back of their copyrighted material. News organizations AP and AFP both sued Google several years ago for copyright violations. (The deal that settled the AP case is now up for renewal.) Now, according to PaidContent, a proposed amendment to a pending UK law ("Digital Economy Bill") wo [...]

SEO Expert Swears In Court That Google Uses Meta Keywords Tag

Dec 18, 2009 at 9:34am ET by Barry Schwartz

I was pointed to a filed affidavit (PDF) between Jenzabar & Robert Maginn as the plaintiffs versus Long Bow Group as the defendants. In short, it seems like the plaintiff is suing the defendants over trademark infringement within a site's keyword meta tags. What is interesting is not that there is a lawsuit about this, this is nothing new. It is the fact that the defendant cited a post by Google that Google does not use the meta keywords tag as a ranking factor or any factor at all. Because of that post, amongst other reasons, the defendant filed a motion (PDF) to strike the affidavit [...]

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

Search Ad Keyword Lawsuit, Now Over Privacy

Nov 20, 2009 at 9:29am ET by Barry Schwartz

We have covered many of the search ad keyword lawsuits aimed between competitors or directly at the search engines in the past. Nowadays, it seems like a new suit around this topic is filed weekly. Typically these suits go after trademark violations and the like, but a new suit is focusing on a privacy legality. Suit over search-engine keywords tries new angle from the Associated Press reports Habush Habush & Rottier is suing Cannon & Dunphy for buying their name on Google and Bing. Habush Habush & Rottier is taking the privacy angle, where in Wisconsin there is the "right-to-privacy st [...]

Google Books Settlement: Is The Open Book Alliance Trying To Get Something For Nothing?

Sep 9, 2009 at 5:30pm ET by Greg Sterling

The legal briefs were flying fast and furiously as all the interest groups, supporters and competitors rushed to meet a deadline for third parties to weigh in on the Google Book Search settlement. The NY Times quotes legal scholars who argue that the "quality" and volume of the filings in the case will make it challenging for the judge to quickly resolve the matter. In some respects this is a "novel" situation in which a great deal is at stake for the involved parties and book publishing more broadly. A settlement hearing is scheduled for October 7. Scores of companies, interest groups a [...]

Microsoft, Yahoo, & Amazon Will Fight Google Book Settlement

Aug 20, 2009 at 8:18pm ET by Matt McGee

There are several reports (see New York Times and Wall Street Journal) that Microsoft, Yahoo, and Amazon will join a coalition aimed at challenging the Google book settlement. Peter Brantley, director of the Internet Archive, which is putting the coalition together, tells the Wall Street Journal that coalition members want the agreement revised, but aren't necessarily pushing to have it blocked. The settlement stems from a lawsuit that claimed Google's practice of scanning books and making them available online violated the copyrights of authors and publishers. Google settled the lawsuit [...]

French Upset Over Google Library Deal, Lawyer-Author Files New Arguments Against Book Search Settlement

Aug 19, 2009 at 10:29am ET by Greg Sterling

It's probably fair to say that the French have a love-hate relationship with American culture, companies and institutions. (The same could be said for some Americans; remember "freedom fries"?) The latest expression of the negative side of that equation in the Gallic world is disappointment over an apparently impending agreement between the French national library and Google to allow the latter to scan its books. The UK's Times Online has the story of what one french journalist described as a movement by the library from "resistance to collaboration": The Bibliothèque Nationale de France (B [...]

Google Versus News Organizations: What’s Fair?

Jul 15, 2009 at 10:23am ET by Greg Sterling

A new Columbia Journalism Review opinion piece argues persuasively (in my view) that Google "owes" something to traditional journalism and news organizations. Google, typically, is a stand-in for "the internet" in these discussions. This notion of responsibility to publishers is unpopular among bloggers and Internet denizens more generally. I tend to fault news organizations for not being faster, smarter and more creative in their online efforts. It's also the case that the Internet as a publishing and distribution platform has disrupted traditional media models across the board. And pointi [...]

US Justice Dept. Formally Confirms Google Books Inquiry

Jul 3, 2009 at 8:34am ET by Greg Sterling

It's not really a surprise or even news that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) confirmed yesterday it was formally investigating the terms of the Google Book Search settlement. This was known as far back as April and essentially confirmed last month by various publications reporting that formal requests (called "civil investigative demands") had been issued to book publishers by the DOJ. What happened yesterday was that the DOJ provided procedural notification to the court that the US is exploring the potential anti-trust dimensions of the Google settlement. The so-called "fairness hearing [...]

Report: How The Internet Has Changed Music Consumption

Jun 16, 2009 at 3:45pm ET by Chris Sherman

Music file sharing services have always been a mutant species of search, offering different tools and methods for finding and listening to tunes. Napster was one of the first and most infamous, and its widespread adoption caused the recording industry to panic, suing both the company and thousands of its users. That hasn't stopped the practice of sharing music—in fact, there are dozens if not hundreds of ways to find and listen to music online today, both legal and otherwise. In a new report, The State of Music Online: Ten Years After Napster, the Pew Internet Project traces the evolu [...]

Open Letter To Google & The AP: Reveal The Licensing Terms

May 29, 2009 at 2:42pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Discussions between Google and the Associated Press about renewing their content licensing deal continue, I assume, but all's quiet recently on the negotiation front. I want to disrupt that. It would be wrong in this particular case for both parties to reach a deal where "terms are not disclosed." The future of journalism, as well as Google's own reputation, deserves for things to open up. After threatening a lawsuit against Google several years ago, AP won its first licensing deal with Google in 2006. Google was at pains to stress this wasn't a deal designed to gain the rights to mere [...]

Sorry, Tom Curley: Don’t Expect A Google Ranking Boost For The AP

May 1, 2009 at 2:14pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Apparently talks between Google and the Associated Press aren't going well, or so says Forbes today, with AP chief executive Tom Curley threatening to take his content and play elsewhere. Where that will be is hard to say. Part of the AP's original issue with Google was that AP's own member publications would reprint AP material (which they're allowed to do as members), causing there to be no single source that could benefit from AP traffic. Google News Now Hosting Wire Stories & Promises Better Variety In Results covers how after a 2006 deal was struck, AP stories started bei [...]

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