Google is sued for copyright infringement

Danske Medier sues Google for copyright and marketing law violations.

This is done on behalf of the job portal Jobindex.

According to Danske Medier and Jobindex, Google and its partners have, in some instances, copied job advertisements from Jobindex’s portal.

Jobindex became aware of the issue in the summer of 2022 and has attempted to get Google to acknowledge that the tech giant has copied job advertisements for the Google for Jobs service without permission. So far, Google has disclaimed responsibility and denies infringing on Jobindex’s rights.

In addition to violating Jobindex’s copyright, Jobindex also believes that it has led to a decrease in organic traffic from Google to Jobindex by approximately 20 percent after the introduction of Google for Jobs, resulting in increased marketing costs.

Therefore, Danske Medier is filing a lawsuit against Google on behalf of Jobindex in the Maritime and Commercial High Court (Sø- og handelsretten) with a compensation claim.

Kaare Danielsen, the CEO of Jobindex, wants to compete with Google but believes it should be on equal terms, which he feels is not the case now.

-“For over a year, we have been trying to get Google to stop abusing its position by directing job-related searches to its own service ‘Google for Jobs’,” says Kaare Danielsen and continues:

-“In addition, Google’s service contains content that has been illegally copied from Jobindex, despite our requests for them to cease. Our copywriters write 2,000 ad texts a year, but Google disregards copyright: They have ‘kindly’ offered that we can object to each individual copied ad we find, in other words, Google is asking Jobindex to monitor whether Google is distributing material that others hold the copyright to.”

Bullying Tactics

Mads Brandstrup, CEO of Danske Medier, describes Google’s behavior as “bullying tactics.”

-“What we see with Jobindex underscores the need to regulate and hold tech giants like Google accountable when they blatantly exploit other companies by copying their content without consent for their own gain. Jobindex has repeatedly tried to reason with Google but to no avail. When Google disclaims all responsibility, we must step in to demand that Google recognizes that the company has copied content and thus violated copyright regulations,” says Mads Brandstrup.”

Danske Medier is an industry organization for private media companies. Among its members are national newspapers, online media, niche media, local, and regional media.