COPYRIGHT COURT CASE HIGHLIGHTS SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION ISSUES
13TH FEBRUARY 2009
Search engine optimisation (SEO) issues are still unclear over websites that link to news stories or copy headlines from online content after a legal case about the matter failed to go to trial.
A publisher planning to sue the New York Times (NYT) over copyright infringement reached a settlement just before an intellectual property court case to examine the matter was due to start.
Community newspaper publisher GateHouse Media alleged the NYT was breaching copyright copying headlines and lead sentences of stories from the GateHouse stable of papers.
However, as a result of the settlement over the copyright violation claims, legal issues surrounding linking and content continue to lack clarity.
Harvard University legal expert David Ardia said the case could have had far-reaching implications for "the news and information ecosystem" that currently propagates the internet.
A key question now perhaps laying unanswered until a court case actually goes to trial is: when does copying headlines and text excerpts go beyond reasonable promotion of someone else's content and become theft of that third party's content?
While links can boost traffic for publishers whose content is being 'copied', those aggregating content in this way are creating a content destination from someone else's work.
As far as SEO is concerned, some aggregators who duplicate content can sometimes appear higher in search engine results than publishers placing the original content on the web - which can rob original publishers of SEO benefits.
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