"Group: Online Content Cannot Remain Free"

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - European publishers warned Tuesday that they cannot keep allowing Internet search engines such as Google Inc. (GOOG) to make money from their content.

"The new models of Google and others reverse the traditional permission-based copyright model of content trading that we have built up over the years," said Francisco Pinto Balsemao, the head of the European Publishers Council, in prepared remarks for a speech at a Brussels conference.

His stance backs French news agency AFP, which is suing Google for pulling together photos and story excerpts from thousands of news Web sites.

"It is fascinating to see how these companies 'help themselves' to copyright-protected material, build up their own business models around what they have collected, and parasitically, earn advertising revenue off the back of other people's content," he said.

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20051206/D8EB23D06.html

I'm not sure how I feel about it. At first blush, I see the EPC's and AFP's point.

"It is fascinating to see how these companies newspapers 'help themselves' to copyright-protected material the stories of other people's fortunes and misfortunes, build up their own business models around what they have collected, and parasitically, earn advertising revenue off the back of other people's content other people's stories of fortunes and misfortunes," he said.

get into the site then they desplay certain information on the site.....


this would be like someone driving down the road, seeing a movie playing on your tv, then the next day some business exec sues you for copy right infringment because people can see the movie through you window