4 ms·

This may not kill the large newspapers, but surely it will destroy the local newspapers. When does a tech blog become news? Can you even share anything on the i

by rhema 6y ago

This may not kill the large newspapers, but surely it will destroy the local newspapers. When does a tech blog become news? Can you even share anything on the internet through Facebook?

kvn_95 6y ago
>Instead, we are left with a choice of either removing news entirely or accepting a system that lets publishers charge us for as much content as they want at a price with no clear limits. Tbh I think FB's comment here is too binary. It seems to me they're implying that news needs to either be free, or they will get charged "unlimited amount". I'm sure other industries have faced a similar issue (e.g. music?) and have implemented a workable solution that benefits both parties (the aggregators and the creators).
- stephen_g 6y ago
  How exactly are Facebook and Google 'using' news content though? What we're talking about here is a link - a headline, maybe a sentence or two and a thumbnail image... The people pushing this bill are trying to make similar comparisons as you, to things like music, but there's no sense in which Google or Facebook are using news content in the way Spotify uses music content, for instance. If you look at the bill, bits of it are actually fairly carefully designed to work around the inconvenient truth that they aren't really directly profiting, and it actually makes other things (like whether the amount the publishers are asking for would be too damaging to Google/Facebook's finances) as big a consideration (or more!) than what the actual benefit Google/Facebook are getting!
  - kmeisthax 6y ago
    Whether or not Google or Facebook directly profit from the use of news content isn't, and arguably shouldn't, be a consideration as to if they should be required to pay or not. This is copyright logic we're working with here: the harm isn't that Google or Facebook found gold in someone else's sandbox, it's that they were digging there at all. We create the law specifically to make money move from one pocket to another, not to satisfy an underlying concept of justice. The thing is, if this was just a new related right, like the EU Copyright Directive, we'd see the market play out as usual. News corporations would realize that Google and Facebook actually are paying them in valuable exposure, and sign away their aggregation rights for free or little cost to the aggregators. Australia appears to be trying to do an end run around that by taking away as many negotiating options from Google as possible. Effectively, there's one massive news collection society and anyone who carries news at all, regardless of who it's from, has to play ball with them. They also are legally required to get what is effectively most-favored-nation status. This is such an oddball way of doing things that I see this either crashing and burning so hard that the courts have to bail out Australian Parliament, or it works perfectly, becomes the new model regime for funding news, and winds up in the next set of WTO treaties (whenever those come around).
stephen_g 6y ago
News Corp (who lobbied to get this bill created) already did a lot of that this year [1] - over the last few decades, they had bought up most of the newspapers in regional Australia, and then ended up deciding they were unviable and shuttered 125 of them in May this year. They're keeping some kind of digital version but let go basically all the local reporters, photographers, etc. and closed all the local offices, and I think just run all the remaining online versions out of just a handful of locations now. 1. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-28/news-corp-makes-regional-papers-digital-only/12295408 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-28/news-corp-makes-regio...
- totetsu 6y ago
  New Zealand has seen a proliferation of local news apps, employing local journalists, payed for by advertisements from local business, come to fill this gap https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018644094/local-apps-fill-news-gaps https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2...

by rhema 6y ago

This may not kill the large newspapers, but surely it will destroy the local newspapers. When does a tech blog become news? Can you even share anything on the internet through Facebook?

kvn_95 6y ago

>Instead, we are left with a choice of either removing news entirely or accepting a system that lets publishers charge us for as much content as they want at a price with no clear limits. Tbh I think FB's comment here is too binary. It seems to me they're implying that news needs to either be free, or they will get charged "unlimited amount". I'm sure other industries have faced a similar issue (e.g. music?) and have implemented a workable solution that benefits both parties (the aggregators and the creators).

stephen_g 6y ago
How exactly are Facebook and Google 'using' news content though? What we're talking about here is a link - a headline, maybe a sentence or two and a thumbnail image... The people pushing this bill are trying to make similar comparisons as you, to things like music, but there's no sense in which Google or Facebook are using news content in the way Spotify uses music content, for instance. If you look at the bill, bits of it are actually fairly carefully designed to work around the inconvenient truth that they aren't really directly profiting, and it actually makes other things (like whether the amount the publishers are asking for would be too damaging to Google/Facebook's finances) as big a consideration (or more!) than what the actual benefit Google/Facebook are getting!
- kmeisthax 6y ago
  Whether or not Google or Facebook directly profit from the use of news content isn't, and arguably shouldn't, be a consideration as to if they should be required to pay or not. This is copyright logic we're working with here: the harm isn't that Google or Facebook found gold in someone else's sandbox, it's that they were digging there at all. We create the law specifically to make money move from one pocket to another, not to satisfy an underlying concept of justice. The thing is, if this was just a new related right, like the EU Copyright Directive, we'd see the market play out as usual. News corporations would realize that Google and Facebook actually are paying them in valuable exposure, and sign away their aggregation rights for free or little cost to the aggregators. Australia appears to be trying to do an end run around that by taking away as many negotiating options from Google as possible. Effectively, there's one massive news collection society and anyone who carries news at all, regardless of who it's from, has to play ball with them. They also are legally required to get what is effectively most-favored-nation status. This is such an oddball way of doing things that I see this either crashing and burning so hard that the courts have to bail out Australian Parliament, or it works perfectly, becomes the new model regime for funding news, and winds up in the next set of WTO treaties (whenever those come around).

stephen_g 6y ago

News Corp (who lobbied to get this bill created) already did a lot of that this year [1] - over the last few decades, they had bought up most of the newspapers in regional Australia, and then ended up deciding they were unviable and shuttered 125 of them in May this year. They're keeping some kind of digital version but let go basically all the local reporters, photographers, etc. and closed all the local offices, and I think just run all the remaining online versions out of just a handful of locations now. 1. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-28/news-corp-makes-regional-papers-digital-only/12295408 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-28/news-corp-makes-regio...

totetsu 6y ago
New Zealand has seen a proliferation of local news apps, employing local journalists, payed for by advertisements from local business, come to fill this gap https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018644094/local-apps-fill-news-gaps https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2...