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For non-Australians: A small number of media companies (often Murdoch-owned but others too) absolutely run the country. They'll do whatever is necessary to supp

For non-Australians: A small number of media companies (often Murdoch-owned but others too) absolutely run the country. They'll do whatever is necessary to support Australia's ruling class, and the government will reward them handsomely in return, even it it means displeasing tech giants.

aneemzic 6y ago
I can't wait until they realize all the money they spend lobbying resulted in a law that will remove the majority of their traffic and what's left of their ad revenue. Nobody is replacing Facebook in the Australian market, and no search company is going to open them up the financial risk of unknown third parties deciding prices for literally linking to their pay-walled news sites. Microsoft won't, but they'll happily take free market share for doing nothing. This is a prime example of why the government should not get involved in b2b. The incompetence of the government never ceases to amaze me.
- fakedang 6y ago
  Who knows, maybe Murdoch realized he has a shit legacy, hence is trying to save Austria from his own creations by handicapping them. /s Or on a more serious note, he just likes power, regardless of how much his businesses would lose.
- konjin 6y ago
  There is literally no way that we the people can't win. Either google gets slapped and stops being a parasite that lives in the cracks of copyright law, or newscorp dies. This is the definition of a win win situation.
  - throwaways885 6y ago
    > Either google gets slapped and stops being a parasite that lives in the cracks of copyright law, or newscorp dies. Seriously? Snippets are clearly fair use. The open web has operated on those principles for decades. You're doing the same as those who cheered on software patents. I don't care if Facebook and Google are the targets, ultimately this takes rights away from all of us and will undoubtedly spread out of Australia if it goes well. Best thing that can happen is News Corp collapses and other countries stay away from legislating the internet.
    - konjin 6y ago
      >You're doing the same as those who cheered on software patents. We have the GPL instead of trade secrets, we can actually see the code without signing away our firstborn. I don't see a down side here.
      - danShumway 6y ago
        > We have the GPL instead of trade secrets The GPL is not a software patent. > I don't see a down side here. Ignoring the fact that the GPL doesn't have anything to do with software patents, ignoring the fact that this analogy is wrong, let's pretend for a second that it does make sense. If you went to someone like Stallman and asked him "you can have the GPL, or we can get rid of software copyright", he would not choose to keep the GPL. The GPL is a stopgap that we use to keep some software free in a world where software is not free by default. But we currently like in a world where snippets are fair use. Taking your analogy at face value, you're talking about getting rid of our freedom so we could have a limited scenario where we can claw a little bit of it back? Some kind of snippet GPL? So it still doesn't make any sense. Even those most charitable interpretation is still a bad trade for us to make.
PixyMisa 6y ago
If it displeases the tech giants that's automatically a good thing for everyone. The question is, what's the downside?
- PurpleFoxy 6y ago
  Newscorp gets more money and continues to drive us to environmental and economical destruction.
- BLKNSLVR 6y ago
  It's the wrong fight to have with Google and has a high chance of ruining the potential to start the right fights with Google.
- username90 6y ago
  Google is the only huge company representing the open web. You might not like them from a privacy point of view, but from an open web point of view they are the most "Good guy" there is of the big players, since their entire revenue model depends on the open web.
  - kaba0 6y ago
    I don’t see browsing payed by cross-site tracking is considered “open”, nor think the browser monopoly with insane feature creep that basically make creating a new browser impossible help the open web. Nonetheless, it is a terrible law.

aneemzic 6y ago

I can't wait until they realize all the money they spend lobbying resulted in a law that will remove the majority of their traffic and what's left of their ad revenue. Nobody is replacing Facebook in the Australian market, and no search company is going to open them up the financial risk of unknown third parties deciding prices for literally linking to their pay-walled news sites. Microsoft won't, but they'll happily take free market share for doing nothing. This is a prime example of why the government should not get involved in b2b. The incompetence of the government never ceases to amaze me.

fakedang 6y ago
Who knows, maybe Murdoch realized he has a shit legacy, hence is trying to save Austria from his own creations by handicapping them. /s Or on a more serious note, he just likes power, regardless of how much his businesses would lose.
konjin 6y ago
There is literally no way that we the people can't win. Either google gets slapped and stops being a parasite that lives in the cracks of copyright law, or newscorp dies. This is the definition of a win win situation.
- throwaways885 6y ago
  > Either google gets slapped and stops being a parasite that lives in the cracks of copyright law, or newscorp dies. Seriously? Snippets are clearly fair use. The open web has operated on those principles for decades. You're doing the same as those who cheered on software patents. I don't care if Facebook and Google are the targets, ultimately this takes rights away from all of us and will undoubtedly spread out of Australia if it goes well. Best thing that can happen is News Corp collapses and other countries stay away from legislating the internet.
  - konjin 6y ago
    >You're doing the same as those who cheered on software patents. We have the GPL instead of trade secrets, we can actually see the code without signing away our firstborn. I don't see a down side here.
    - danShumway 6y ago
      > We have the GPL instead of trade secrets The GPL is not a software patent. > I don't see a down side here. Ignoring the fact that the GPL doesn't have anything to do with software patents, ignoring the fact that this analogy is wrong, let's pretend for a second that it does make sense. If you went to someone like Stallman and asked him "you can have the GPL, or we can get rid of software copyright", he would not choose to keep the GPL. The GPL is a stopgap that we use to keep some software free in a world where software is not free by default. But we currently like in a world where snippets are fair use. Taking your analogy at face value, you're talking about getting rid of our freedom so we could have a limited scenario where we can claw a little bit of it back? Some kind of snippet GPL? So it still doesn't make any sense. Even those most charitable interpretation is still a bad trade for us to make.

PixyMisa 6y ago

If it displeases the tech giants that's automatically a good thing for everyone. The question is, what's the downside?

PurpleFoxy 6y ago
Newscorp gets more money and continues to drive us to environmental and economical destruction.
BLKNSLVR 6y ago
It's the wrong fight to have with Google and has a high chance of ruining the potential to start the right fights with Google.
username90 6y ago
Google is the only huge company representing the open web. You might not like them from a privacy point of view, but from an open web point of view they are the most "Good guy" there is of the big players, since their entire revenue model depends on the open web.
- kaba0 6y ago
  I don’t see browsing payed by cross-site tracking is considered “open”, nor think the browser monopoly with insane feature creep that basically make creating a new browser impossible help the open web. Nonetheless, it is a terrible law.