Posted by kdownie @ 11:31am GMT
What constitutes fair use of copyrighted content on the Internet? These boundaries may be shaped by a lawsuit filed recently against Google by the French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP). In the most highly publicized suit of its kind, AFP is arguing that Google wrongfully aggregated photos and story excerpts from its news sites in order to populate Google News. Now, the general mode of thinking about content on the Web has always gone something like this: "If the content is out there, and it ain't locked down (i.e., password protected), then you can link to it, aggregate it, and organize it however you want." In other words, to quote a popular open-source mantra, information wants to be free. But if AFP wins, and these restrictions are tightened, the case could have far-reaching implications for search engines and new aggregators.
