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I feel like this time it's different , google (and big tech it represents) will get little sympathy on reddit and other watering holes. Even if the law seems re

I feel like this time it's different , google (and big tech it represents) will get little sympathy on reddit and other watering holes. Even if the law seems restricting, it's Google who broke the social contract of the internet and turned from a benevolent rent-seeker to a feudal lord. (E.g. check this: https://www.google.com/search?q=money+for+nothing https://www.google.com/search?q=money+for+nothing , google just pastes the lyrics and there is NO link to read them on the original site. Even if musixmatch is getting paid , they are made irrelevant and this is a poisoned pill). Reading the defenses here in HN, I have become personally partial to conspiracy theories that too many paid commenters are among the crowd here. Plus i don't get what the fuss is about google news. I don't think it's used much outside the US, and even these websites aren't just going to lose all their traffic, because people are addicted to news. They 'll be partly visiting local websites more often, and this shift may actualy be enough to revive the income-starved journalism profession.

threeseed 6y ago
Google's lyrics are licensed from Musixmatch. They are not scraping them from websites who as always are completely free to exempt themselves from searches via the sitemap.xml file.
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  The license is basically a death sentence (or alternatively a fragile lifeline) if the lyrics page is not being linked to. Former content producers for the open web have turned to content producers for Google. This is how serfdom works
  - aahortwwy 6y ago
    You could've chosen a better example of "content producers for the open web" than lyrics websites. Musixmatch didn't write Money For Nothing.
  - adriancr 6y ago
    Lyrics are not produced by the page hosting them, if anything those are a cancer of ads and malware that I steer away from. Google can probably do voice recognition now on songs and get the lyrics without outside parties (see youtube cc which is pretty good). Or they can strike a deal with music companies to get lyrics when they get the songs...
  - sukilot 6y ago
    You've got it exactly backwards! Lyrics are copyrighted. Google is the serf here, renting lyrics from musixmatch.
- JimWestergren 6y ago
  >exempt themselves from searches via the sitemap.xml file Nitpick: you mean meta noindex and/or robots.txt
- nabla9 6y ago
  I think what cblconfederate is getting into is the business environment with nothing but bad options. It's the Walmart conundrum for suppliers except for internet content production. Google and Facebook are the Walmart in this. The success of Walmart created an environment where only good business decisions in a short term destroyed of the brand and profits in the long term. (1) If supplier did not deal trough Walmart, their market gradually declined because Big-Box Retailers squeezed out alternative channels. (2) Eventually supplier made deal with Walmart to stop decline in the market share. First years saw profits increase and huge increase in sales. But Walmart buyers come in regularly every year and demand smaller price. And they don't take no as an answer. They are ruthless negotiators and religious about cutting prices. First supplier profit margins drop, then absolute profits, then they must cut the quality of the product. Eventually they have destroyed their brand and the product. There are hundreds of suppliers who suffered this fate. Destruction of Levi Strauss brand and quality is classic business case.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
    All businesses operate under constraints, and the constraints change over time as technology and tastes develop. Most possible businesses face constraints that make them unviable, and so they are never created. Music lyrics sites just seem like an unviable business. They license low-value data from the owner, surround it with a crapton of ads, then serve that up to users. They have very little stickiness and one is about as good as another. From a user perspective, having those results directly on Google is better about 90% of the time. There are only two lyrics sites I'm aware of that offer any value above Google's version: songmeanings.net and genius.com, and the little value they provide comes from the hosting of user comments. Lyrics sites come up a lot on here, but I do not really understand why. Consumers do not get much benefit from their continued existence. The only people who benefit are the site owners themselves.
  - yyyhhh 6y ago
    But isn't this also why prices are do much lower today? Internet content making is someone anyone can do. It's hard to make it profitable. Is this really the fault of big tech?
- tyingq 6y ago
  This claim seems credible: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/amp/thr-esq/genius-says-it-caught-google-lyricfind-redhanded-stealing-lyrics-400m-suit-1259383 https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/amp/thr-esq/genius-says-it...
nl 6y ago
> Reading the defenses here in HN, I have become personally partial to conspiracy theories that too many paid commenters are among the crowd here. What do you mean? It's a ridiculous, arbitrary money grab used to fund old the old media mates of politicians. See Mike Cannon Brooke's (as someone who most definitely isn't getting paid by Google) thread to see how insane the rules are: https://twitter.com/mcannonbrookes/status/1289133038215913478 https://twitter.com/mcannonbrookes/status/128913303821591347... https://twitter.com/mcannonbrookes/status/1289144381060943872 https://twitter.com/mcannonbrookes/status/128914438106094387...
- clouddrover 6y ago
  It's about funding journalism. What's Mike Cannon-Brooke's solution for funding journalism?
  - renaicirc 6y ago
    I'm sorry, but funding media giants is obviously not a good reason to extort search giants. What is the nuance that I am missing?
    - clouddrover 6y ago
      Google gets content and advertising revenue, journalists are not getting enough return for their work. It's not sustainable.
      - throwaways885 6y ago
        Maybe news isn't sustainable in the long run anyway. Independent journalists (who CAN survive on 50k-150k in ad revenue) are the future.
        clouddrover 6y ago
        How? They'll be crushed like bugs by the first lawsuit that comes along. The only way they'd survive is by producing fawning, uncritical reports, like almost every interview done with movie stars.
ImaCake 6y ago
>conspiracy theories that too many paid commenters are among the crowd here I think HN just has a large pro-google crowd. I remember it used to be everyone loved google. So it shouldn't be a surprise that one of the remaining bastions of google public support would be a silicon valley startup community. I suspect a lot of people outside Australia are unaware of how respected an institution the ACCC is. Maybe that is why they are so quick to discount their response here.
- vermilingua 6y ago
  > how respected an institution the ACCC is Maybe we’ve been living in different Australias, but over the last decade the ACCC (like virtually every other public institution) has become yet another mouthpiece for the government. From their attacks on solar, their constant support of “traditional media” (Murdoch), and their utter ineptitude to actually protect individual consumers, any respect left is there through inertia alone.
- wokwokwok 6y ago
  Mmm... Stereotype much? I see why you don’t mind the newscorp news. Then ACCC is far from in the right here; this seems to be being driven by political motivations, not some motivation to do the best for Australia / Australians. The ACCC has plenty of opportunity to explain why it’s better this way, and don’t seem to have clearly articulated it. “Better for democracy” or “better for newscorp”? You tell me; why the ABC and SBS are excluded from this? ...because that’s what the government wants. The ACCC Looks increasingly like it’s just a mouthpiece.
  - ImaCake 6y ago
    >Mmm... Stereotype much? I see why you don’t mind the newscorp news. I don't like the newscorp news actually. But it is revealing that you would think this. One might suspect we just have different views on who should be controlling things in this case. I am not as confident as I suspect you might be about who should be controlling media access. But I think google is being very disingenious in their letter, and the ACCC seems far less so.
- 6y ago
subroutine 6y ago
For me, there is a link... Lyrics Now look at them yo-yo's that's the way you do it You play the guitar on the MTV That ain't workin' that's the way you do it Money for nothin' and chicks for free… More Source: https://www.musixmatch.com © Straitjacket Songs Ltd., Gm Sumner
- readarticle 6y ago
  To the Musixmatch index page, not the actual page they’ve sourced the lyrics from, thus: there is NO link to read them on the original site., merely a link to find them yourself. Clicking “Full Lyrics” also just leads you to another google page. With another link to Musixmatch’s index page at the bottom, not the actual lyrics page.
graeme 6y ago
You linked to google. Should you pay them? If you shouldn’t, why should google pay to link to news? Google news is not a profit center for google. They make money from ads. The whole “pay us for sending us traffic” argument has the economics of the web completely backwards. Organizations try to get links, as it sends them traffic. Should hacker news pay money to the sites it links to? Or do they benefit from being here?

threeseed 6y ago

Google's lyrics are licensed from Musixmatch. They are not scraping them from websites who as always are completely free to exempt themselves from searches via the sitemap.xml file.

cblconfederate 6y ago
The license is basically a death sentence (or alternatively a fragile lifeline) if the lyrics page is not being linked to. Former content producers for the open web have turned to content producers for Google. This is how serfdom works
- aahortwwy 6y ago
  You could've chosen a better example of "content producers for the open web" than lyrics websites. Musixmatch didn't write Money For Nothing.
- adriancr 6y ago
  Lyrics are not produced by the page hosting them, if anything those are a cancer of ads and malware that I steer away from. Google can probably do voice recognition now on songs and get the lyrics without outside parties (see youtube cc which is pretty good). Or they can strike a deal with music companies to get lyrics when they get the songs...
- sukilot 6y ago
  You've got it exactly backwards! Lyrics are copyrighted. Google is the serf here, renting lyrics from musixmatch.
JimWestergren 6y ago
>exempt themselves from searches via the sitemap.xml file Nitpick: you mean meta noindex and/or robots.txt
nabla9 6y ago
I think what cblconfederate is getting into is the business environment with nothing but bad options. It's the Walmart conundrum for suppliers except for internet content production. Google and Facebook are the Walmart in this. The success of Walmart created an environment where only good business decisions in a short term destroyed of the brand and profits in the long term. (1) If supplier did not deal trough Walmart, their market gradually declined because Big-Box Retailers squeezed out alternative channels. (2) Eventually supplier made deal with Walmart to stop decline in the market share. First years saw profits increase and huge increase in sales. But Walmart buyers come in regularly every year and demand smaller price. And they don't take no as an answer. They are ruthless negotiators and religious about cutting prices. First supplier profit margins drop, then absolute profits, then they must cut the quality of the product. Eventually they have destroyed their brand and the product. There are hundreds of suppliers who suffered this fate. Destruction of Levi Strauss brand and quality is classic business case.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
  All businesses operate under constraints, and the constraints change over time as technology and tastes develop. Most possible businesses face constraints that make them unviable, and so they are never created. Music lyrics sites just seem like an unviable business. They license low-value data from the owner, surround it with a crapton of ads, then serve that up to users. They have very little stickiness and one is about as good as another. From a user perspective, having those results directly on Google is better about 90% of the time. There are only two lyrics sites I'm aware of that offer any value above Google's version: songmeanings.net and genius.com, and the little value they provide comes from the hosting of user comments. Lyrics sites come up a lot on here, but I do not really understand why. Consumers do not get much benefit from their continued existence. The only people who benefit are the site owners themselves.
- yyyhhh 6y ago
  But isn't this also why prices are do much lower today? Internet content making is someone anyone can do. It's hard to make it profitable. Is this really the fault of big tech?
tyingq 6y ago
This claim seems credible: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/amp/thr-esq/genius-says-it-caught-google-lyricfind-redhanded-stealing-lyrics-400m-suit-1259383 https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/amp/thr-esq/genius-says-it...

nl 6y ago

> Reading the defenses here in HN, I have become personally partial to conspiracy theories that too many paid commenters are among the crowd here. What do you mean? It's a ridiculous, arbitrary money grab used to fund old the old media mates of politicians. See Mike Cannon Brooke's (as someone who most definitely isn't getting paid by Google) thread to see how insane the rules are: https://twitter.com/mcannonbrookes/status/1289133038215913478 https://twitter.com/mcannonbrookes/status/128913303821591347... https://twitter.com/mcannonbrookes/status/1289144381060943872 https://twitter.com/mcannonbrookes/status/128914438106094387...

clouddrover 6y ago
It's about funding journalism. What's Mike Cannon-Brooke's solution for funding journalism?
- renaicirc 6y ago
  I'm sorry, but funding media giants is obviously not a good reason to extort search giants. What is the nuance that I am missing?
  - clouddrover 6y ago
    Google gets content and advertising revenue, journalists are not getting enough return for their work. It's not sustainable.
    - throwaways885 6y ago
      Maybe news isn't sustainable in the long run anyway. Independent journalists (who CAN survive on 50k-150k in ad revenue) are the future.
      - clouddrover 6y ago
        How? They'll be crushed like bugs by the first lawsuit that comes along. The only way they'd survive is by producing fawning, uncritical reports, like almost every interview done with movie stars.

ImaCake 6y ago

>conspiracy theories that too many paid commenters are among the crowd here I think HN just has a large pro-google crowd. I remember it used to be everyone loved google. So it shouldn't be a surprise that one of the remaining bastions of google public support would be a silicon valley startup community. I suspect a lot of people outside Australia are unaware of how respected an institution the ACCC is. Maybe that is why they are so quick to discount their response here.

vermilingua 6y ago
> how respected an institution the ACCC is Maybe we’ve been living in different Australias, but over the last decade the ACCC (like virtually every other public institution) has become yet another mouthpiece for the government. From their attacks on solar, their constant support of “traditional media” (Murdoch), and their utter ineptitude to actually protect individual consumers, any respect left is there through inertia alone.
wokwokwok 6y ago
Mmm... Stereotype much? I see why you don’t mind the newscorp news. Then ACCC is far from in the right here; this seems to be being driven by political motivations, not some motivation to do the best for Australia / Australians. The ACCC has plenty of opportunity to explain why it’s better this way, and don’t seem to have clearly articulated it. “Better for democracy” or “better for newscorp”? You tell me; why the ABC and SBS are excluded from this? ...because that’s what the government wants. The ACCC Looks increasingly like it’s just a mouthpiece.
- ImaCake 6y ago
  >Mmm... Stereotype much? I see why you don’t mind the newscorp news. I don't like the newscorp news actually. But it is revealing that you would think this. One might suspect we just have different views on who should be controlling things in this case. I am not as confident as I suspect you might be about who should be controlling media access. But I think google is being very disingenious in their letter, and the ACCC seems far less so.
6y ago

subroutine 6y ago

For me, there is a link... Lyrics Now look at them yo-yo's that's the way you do it You play the guitar on the MTV That ain't workin' that's the way you do it Money for nothin' and chicks for free… More Source: https://www.musixmatch.com © Straitjacket Songs Ltd., Gm Sumner

readarticle 6y ago
To the Musixmatch index page, not the actual page they’ve sourced the lyrics from, thus: there is NO link to read them on the original site., merely a link to find them yourself. Clicking “Full Lyrics” also just leads you to another google page. With another link to Musixmatch’s index page at the bottom, not the actual lyrics page.

graeme 6y ago

You linked to google. Should you pay them? If you shouldn’t, why should google pay to link to news? Google news is not a profit center for google. They make money from ads. The whole “pay us for sending us traffic” argument has the economics of the web completely backwards. Organizations try to get links, as it sends them traffic. Should hacker news pay money to the sites it links to? Or do they benefit from being here?