http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...lines-business

Comical lawsuit, IMO

If you've ever used Google news

http://news.google.com

And you should, best news aggregator out there, you read the headlines, and if something is interesting enough that it piques your interest, you click that headline and it takes you to the story.

Google is essentially a shop window selling AFP's products and they've repaid the free space Google has made available via a lawsuit.

Smart folks.

Google Sued Over Use of News Material

From Reuters


Agence France-Presse has sued Google Inc., alleging that the Internet search leader includes AFP's news stories, headlines and photos on its website without permission.

The Paris-based news service is seeking damages of at least $17.5 million and an order barring Google News from displaying AFP material, according to the suit filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Neither executives of Mountain View, Calif.-based Google nor lawyers for AFP could be reached for comment on the suit.

AFP sells subscriptions to its content and does not provide it free.

Google gathers photos and news stories from around the Web and posts them on its news site, which is free to users.

"Without AFP's authorization, defendant is continuously and willfully reproducing and publicly displaying AFP's photographs, headlines and story leads on its Google News Web pages," AFP charges in its lawsuit.

AFP said that it had informed Google it was not authorized to use AFP's copyrighted material as it did and that it had asked Google to stop.

Google has ignored those requests, AFP's suit alleges.