With all the steps people and organizations take to achieve some precious “Google juice,” it’s surprising to see parties take legal action to have their links and content removed from the all-powerful search engine. But that’s precisely the case in Belgium today.
According to The New York Times, Copiepresse, an organization that helps enforce the copyrights of some of Belgium’s best-known newspapers, including Le Soir and Le Libre Belgique, sued Google for publishing summaries of articles in the newspapers along with a link to the Web sites of the newspapers.
Margaret Boribon, the organization’s spokeperson said, “We are asking for Google to pay and seek our authorization to use our content.”
I understand an industry under pressure looking to their lawyers to solve their problems. But I don’t agree with it. It would benefit the recording industry and the publishing industry to look instead to the marketers and technologists in their midst for new solutions to old problems.
