The publishers were particularly upset at the fact that one was able to still read the headlines and first couple of sentences from Google’s site long after the news was moved behind the pay-for-use section of the various newspapers’ sites. The Belgian Court, where the case was heard, ruled in essence that Google was infringing on the publishers’ copyright by caching the news on its own servers. Google was thus ordered to remove all the material from its site, as well as pay a fine of €25 000 for each day that the copyright was infringed (coming to some €3.5m!).

In essence this case was about advertising revenue – Google’s main source of income. The publishers of course were also interested in the advertising revenue which could be earned on their own sites and which they lost out to since users were now not clicking through to the publishers’ newspaper sites. It seems however that the publishers forgot that many people came to their sites through Google – something they very quickly realised when Google (after losing the case) went ahead and removed all links to the various newspaper sites together with the offending material.

Other than the fines, Google was never ordered to pay the publishers any amount in damages for the copyright infringement. The publishers have now issues summons against Google in the Belgian courts for an amount of €49m for the alleged damage they suffered because of the copyright infringement (I never knew newspaper online advertising revenue was this lucrative!). The same group of publishers also instituted action against Yahoo as well as MSN in a bid to block the other big online search engines from infringing on its copyright.

The damages which the publishers are now claiming for, are in addition to the fines which the court levied on Google. This comes while Google’s appeal on the original copyright infringement case is still pending and will be heard by the Belgian court sometime in September of this year.

The outcome of this case could have some far-reaching impact on the legal framework around copyright in the European Union, as there are already rumours going around that the EU will be looking into its copyright laws because of the Google case.

One would be able to excuse the Californian judge reading papers filed in the case of EchoStar versus NDS for thinking he is reading a spy novel, since that is exactly what it sounds like!

In essence, NDS, partly owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation group, was the manufacturer of smartcards for an American pay-tv company, who found themselves in a spot of bother when the smartcards were hacked and distributed over the internet, leaving the pay-tv company feeling like the SABC, with the nightmare of thousands of pirate viewers. Without a not-so-clever “it’s the right thing to do campaign”, the pay-tv company was forced to replace all their clients’ smartcards at a cost of several million dollars.

This posed a serious dilemma for NDS, since the pay-tv company started looking around at some other companies to manufacture their smartcards and encryption technology – the main contender of which was involved with EchoStar. In order to tackle this dilemma, NDS (allegedly) went about a campaign to compromise EchoStar’s smartcards and encryption technology.

The (alleged) campaign plays out like a serious spy-novel, in great 007-fashion. NDS (allegedly) recruited some of the hackers who initially hacked the NDS smartcards from Bulgaria, Germany and Canada and set up a top-secret facility in Israel with the (alleged) express instruction to break the encryption of the EchoStar smartcards. Other staff on the facility’s payroll included the former Shin Bet (Israel’s secret service) deputy-head, a former US Navy Intelligence Officer, a former Scotland Yard commander and an alleged terrorist.

The campaign started to unravel in 2000 when US Customs agents found US$40 000 worth of cash stashed inside electronic equipment such as DVD players and the like, shipped to one of the (alleged) hackers (an engineer on NDS’ payroll) in California from Canada via Texas. Just prior to that, a german hacker, who had been able to get hold of the encryption codes and schematics for the EchoStar system (and who NDS confirmed they offered a job, which he had rejected) disappeared from his home and was later found dead, hanging from a belt in a local park. The death was ruled a suicide, however there was indications of foul play, such as the deceased feet touching the ground when he was found.

EchoStar realised that their smartcards had also been hacked when they met the pay-tv company who wanted to switch from NDS to EchoStar. EchoStar claims that NDS was behind this hack in order to discourage pay-tv companies to switch from NDS to EchoStar.

During all of these events, EchoStar wasn’t the only company faced with hacked smartcards. The French company, Canal Plus, also instituted action against NDS for allegedly hacking its smartcards. This case was eventually dropped when Canal Plus’ holding company and NDS’ holding company struck a deal in Italian pay-tv services, which included a condition that Canal Plus drops its claims against NDS.

On the flip side, NDS is denies all of the allegations and maintained that they were reverse-engineering EchoStar’s smartcards in order to understand their competition without distributing the information. In an email statement to wired.com, NDS declared: “The hacking of EchoStar was the result of inferior technology arising from inadequate investment in research and development by [EchoStar]. NDS, on the other hand, invests heavily in research and development … we reinvested over 30 percent of our revenues into R&D — the result is that we have zero piracy and the platforms of our customers are completely secure.”

Strangely enough, this case has received very little media attention in the US, a country where most of the media companies are somehow linked to Murdoch’s empire. The case is expected to last another two to three weeks in the US Central District Court of California.

* apologies for the (alleged) in the article – at this stage none of the allegations have been proven in court and since br!ghtshark is no 008, he’d better play it safe at this stage.

I won’t dwell too much on the history of the matter, other than to make the general remark that the current turn of events (that Inge Lotz’s parents have instituted  R8-million civil claim against Fred van der Vyfer, a-la-OJ-Simpson vs the civil claim of Fred van der Vyfer against the state for wrongful prosecution vs recent confessions by some tik-gang members that they killed Inge Lotz) is extremely interesting! Watch this space!