The Court of First Instance in Brussels had ruled on February 13 that Google’s practice of syndicating newspaper headlines along with snippets of text to link to articles, constituted an infringement of Belgium’s copyright law. The newspaper in question did not have objections to being linked on Google but to the fact that it was not being paid enough. One would imagine, given the pace at which Google is growing, that newspapers would realise the benefits of allowing Google to link to them at nominal prices. The notion of copyright infringement needs to be revisited because the publicity and awareness that follow from a site such as Google will in fact propel newspapers, such as the Belgian one, to international fame and bring them more profit than any fee paid by Google could.

The same can be said of books. Google’s idea of putting entire books online will not slow down print sales, because new technology does not necessarily mean replacing the old; it would be a complementary process. While the iPod may have replaced the Discman, the music industry has seen a boom in the long run. This can be attested by the experiment with streaming television shows online. Initially, networks were worried that with illegal downloads of their episodes available, people would stop watching television. But, instead, it generated new interest and increased viewership because people who had to miss a particular TV show could still get to watch it later. DVD sales of TV shows have sky-rocketed.

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