NEWSPAPERS are fighting to regain control of how their stories appear online. The World Association of Newspapers announced last week it is developing an automated system for granting search engines permission to use their content. The move follows a Belgian court ruling this month in which Google was found guilty of infringing the copyright of Belgian newspapers by publishing verbatim excerpts of their stories in search results on its news site.
The WAN鈥檚 new system, Automated Content Access Protocol, converts print publishers鈥� terms of use into a form that the search engines鈥� robotic 鈥渃rawlers鈥� can understand. It says the system, to be launched this year, will help avoid future legal clashes between search engines and publishers.
