Google is a "Parasite"
Or at least that's the take of Francisco Pinto Balsemao, head of the European Publishers Council:
European publishers warned Tuesday that they cannot keep allowing Internet search engines such as Google Inc. 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.
Think about this very carefully. How many bloggers use the same stories and also advertise on their blogs? Yes, I know the numbers are different, and most bloggers don't make much. But it's somewhat chilling to consider what the major news organizations potentially have in their toolbox should they deem it necessary.
Oh, and by the way - I got this story from Yahoo/Associated Press.
