The problems of Google News are refusing to subside in the Scandinavian countries. Some time recently Google was stopped from indexing the news of  Belgian newspapers till Google agrees to pay them. The  Scandinavian versions of Google News, which was launched last week, has ran into  trouble too.

According to  international intellectual property rights regulations, the protected photographs and images cannot be used freely by others. However the home pages of Google display these photographs.  Mediebedriftenes Landsforening, which is an  association for media companies of Norway has protested against the utilization of   photographs by Google News Norway without an agreement.

According to Dagens Næringsliv Google Norway and Google News has been sent a letter by the association stating that use of photographs  is against the  Norwegian copyright law.  Google News’ Product Manager Nathan Stoll says “I have had more phone calls from people that complain about not being included, than publishers concerned about copyright”. Terje Bringedal, leader of the Norwegian Press Photographer’s Club said to Journalisten.no  that Google should not use photographs  without  asking the owner.

In Denmark also the launch of Google News Denmark was halted by  Danske Dagblades Forening, which is the  Danish association of newspapers on the grounds that there should be separate agreement between every publisher and Google.  In order to get approval for giving links to news articles of Danish newspapers, letters have been sent to the newspapers by Google.

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