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"Article 11 is intended to give publishers and newspapers a way to make money when companies like Google link to their stories…” Is there anything stopping a s
by docdeek 8y ago
"Article 11 is intended to give publishers and newspapers a way to make money when companies like Google link to their stories…”
Is there anything stopping a search engine like Google choosing not to link to a newspaper? Surely they can’t be required to link to a newspaper AND then pay that newspaper to do so?
The trade-off if Google chose not to link to the newspaper would be a (slightly) less useful search engine, but the cost to the newspapers would surely be higher in the long term…or am I missing something?
- tehbeard 8y agoGoogle probably has the cash lying around to make its own news empire if needed. More likely? They drop anyone who doesn't give them a free or very generous rate.
- erk__ 8y agoThat would then be misuse of a monopoly.
- candiodari 8y agoThat's funny. In a minute you'll be saying that one will be enforced in Europe. I mean perhaps they're racist enough to enforce it against Google, but they won't prevent monopolies. (Europe, where near everything is mono/oligopolized and the behavior of those companies is abhorrent. From beer in Belgium (they own the cafes or loan them money and force out competing beers from the menu), to cheese in France (import and health regulations mean almost no non-French cheese and French producers are exempt from even most of those health regulations). To German cars (read how Dieselgate played out in Germany, ie. German manufacturers got exempted from ... car regulations ... not even joking ... or what keeps happening to startup car manufacturers in Germany and France, ...)
- ionised 8y agoGoogle is not a race.
- candiodari 8y agoBasing a decision on nationality is. Does it really make that much difference that it's a company rather than a person ? I mean, it does, but ... on the other hand companies are nothing but groups of people. It's far less than actual racism, but it's still not right.
- dexen 8y agoThis already is in progress on Youtube (an Alphabet company). There is significant push to onboard the well known cable news brands on Youtube, on preferential conditions as compared to the regular, individual youtubers.
- lanevorockz 8y agoIt is an intended block on convincing people through facts. In all reality, the EU is ruled by old bureaucrats and they see internet like a commodity that needs to be controlled and regulated. Make a joke on the internet? Think twice your IP will be your liability.
- elaus 8y agoGermany was a pioneer with its "Leistungsschutzrecht" and German publishers indeed wanted to force Google to show their news snippets (and therefore pay for them). Their reasoning was that Google as a monopoly position and therefore they have to show news from all publishers equally.
- undreren 8y agoHow would this work in practice? I could easily set up a news company. Would they have to link to my articles as much as other news articles?
- adrianN 8y agoYou're forgetting the army of lawyers.
- thirdsun 8y agoEquality really wasn’t what the german publishers had in mind. They wanted Google to pay for being able to show a snippet of their content in News. A ridiculous idea, that was countered by the only sensible answer: Google asked publishers if they wanted to continue to have their content listed in Google News for free or if their content should be removed. Needless to say that almost all of the proponents, including the most vocal publishers, agreed to keep their content indexed, thereby rendering the law useless. That’s how it worked in practice.
- pbadenski 8y agoTells you something about Google. They seem to think they're just another company doing business. They're not - they are a monstrous monopoly, quoted response is clearly bullying and should be treated as such.
- thirdsun 8y agoI disagree. The publishers line of thought is absurd. How can anyone reason that publishers should be paid for the major share of visitors Google forwards to their content? Of course publishers have every right to de-index their content from news, search or both and the tools to do so have always been available. However apparently they had to be reminded explicitely. Google, or similar services like Apple News, certainly can't be forced to pay for content they don't want or need.
- raverbashing 8y agoOf all those items I'm happy Art 11 is the one most likely to blow up on the face of those pushing for it
- cyphar 8y agoThe problem is that Google is without question a monopoly, and so I think that there is a valid argument that it needs to be regulated and be forced to be impartial in the results shown. The fact that they show people's content without giving them page views (in a world where page views are how you get significant amounts of money, not to mention subscription opportunities) is a conscious decision to implement a feature that arguably impacts revenue. I think there is also a valid argument for this as well. But I do think that the EU copyright law is significantly flawed because it's purpose is to further extend the already ridiculously over-extended draconian copyright laws that exist in the EU. I don't think the issues they (ostensibly) set out to solve are something that should be ignored though -- Google acting as a biased monopoly which implements features that impact people's ability to make money is a real problem that needs to be solved somehow.
- mygo 8y ago> The fact that they show people's content without giving them page views Are you talking about AMP?
- liveoneggs 8y agomobile Q&A results slide-down-widget thingy is the most egregious imho
- mygo 8y agoooh the widget content. wow that’s huge, most google results have some kind of widget content be it q&a results or images or even key excerpts. never really thought that it’s reducing a lot of page views but with enough of those little widgets it probably adds up. If you’re getting what you’re looking for right on the results page then why click on a link?
- mrunkel 8y ago> The problem is that Google is without question a monopoly This is just false. bing.com exists. news.ycombinator.com exists. reddit.com exists.... > The fact that they show people's content without giving them page views.. This is just false. Google shows at most an excerpt (that is defined by the publisher) or a headline (on news.google.com). Unless you're talking about AMP, but that's a decision made by the publisher too.
- dalbasal 8y agoAbout 10 years ago, newspapers got together to try and get Google to give them some money, for the content Google was indexing to populate their news search results. Google's response was to give them better ways of de-indexing content. IE, a way to opt out. Take it or leave it. Naturally, few newspaper took leave it, preferring to get readers & no revenue than no readers and no revenue. Since then, efforts have focused on turning that around. Give Google a take it or leave it option. Either shut down Google news or pay newspapers somehow. So far, Google have walked a couple of times, when such laws were passed locally. So yes, Google could end Google news search.
- village-idiot 8y agoI think the newspapers forgot that Google doesn’t need them.
- lorenzobr 8y agoExactly and tbh Google could just buy a newspaper and not give a shit about it. Many newspapers are rubbish and publish rubbish content anyway so that's the problem, not the copyright.
- Scarblac 8y agoOn the other hand, newspapers were a lot less rubbish two decades ago when they could still afford to employ many journalists. That is what they're trying to get back to with legislation like this.
- pjc50 8y agoGoogle should resolve this by conspicuously refusing to link to newspapers. There should be a banner saying "results from certain news sites are not available in your country", like the existing chillingeffects one. (This dealt with an earlier local version of this in some European countries)
- gaius 8y agoGoogle’s end goal is that the only way to monetise content is by one of their ads. That’s not a world good for either democracy or journalism or any artistic work.
- raverbashing 8y agoFunny, because that piece of legislation does exactly that
- anotherevan 8y agoDidn't Spain news media ram through some kind of link-tax laws to try and extricate money out of Google, and that's why we don't hear any news out of Spain any more?
- ericdykstra 8y agoYes, Spain has been shut out of Google News since December, 2014. It's a good example of regulation that can actually go so far that even the biggest companies will stop doing business in your country.
- the_gipsy 8y agoGoogle News for Spain certainly closed in response to that law. I guess that Google News for other countries then also doesn’t link to spanish newspapers, since those could still somehow sue google as a company that operates in Spain.
- ams6110 8y agoIs the license fee really for a simple link? I'd think the other publishers would love for sites like Google to be linking content and driving traffic to their platforms. If it's about scraping content and presenting it in a separate feed or otherwise outside of the source platform, I can see why they would not want that.
- blihp 8y agoI was wondering the same thing then read in the article that links with 'single word' descriptions are ok. So my guess is that it's aimed a "linkers" who quote a significant fraction of an article (I.e. eliminating the reason to click on the link)
- vageli 8y ago> I was wondering the same thing then read in the article that links with 'single word' descriptions are ok. So my guess is that it's aimed a "linkers" who quote a significant fraction of an article (I.e. eliminating the reason to click on the link) Wouldn't that also preclude inclusion of the title? How would single word descriptions even be meaningful beyond being used as citation link anchors?