Now with Google News out of beta, newspaper sites are aiming their legal big guns at the news aggregator site. Although no lawsuits have been filed as yet, they want to see if they can stop Google News and potentially any other aggregating service from listing content from their sites. They would of course hate people using Google News to look up the latest headlines from around the world because that means they would not be looking at the multiple banners and advertising boxes that news sites now seem to make people view. Some sites even want their visitors to sign in to be able to read news articles or endure a flash advertisement everytime an article is requested.
It is no longer enough for traditional media companies to sell newspapers and classifieds. They want to not only feed us with tightly-controlled reporting, they would also like us to pay for it as well (either by subscription to their sites or by viewing tons of advertising). Given this situation, it is not at all surprising to me that people want to use services like Google News. Even though it is not complete, it gives one a quick summary of news and events from around the world at a glance. This, is being regarded by the news sites as stealing contents. If they succeed in suing Google News out of existence, next they will be aiming their guns at RSS readers and other content aggregating sites and software.
So, is there really any copyright breach going on here? Is it a breach of copyright laws to list and link content from a site without paying and without getting permission? This is not really clear at the moment, but from my standpoint, Google News should not be breaching copyright laws because they acknowledge their sources and furthermore, being listed in Google News actually can enhance the readership of a site, big or small.
I think that what is happening here is that either the newspaper owners do not really understand the concept of linking on the web, or they want everybody who links to their website to pay either a licensing fee or something else. In this way they could even target websites such as Slashdot.
Ultimately, they all probably want to become little news islands on the web, much like The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal. They both force their readers to either register or in the case of the Wall Street Journal, to subscribe. Even though they have their readership, neither of the sites are actually part of the wider web of knowledge. They have become news black holes on the web. When was the last time you came across anything from either of these sites in a search?