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The argument is always that these companies are using and benefiting from news for free. Now, they aren't. It's weird to create a new kind of property right a

by jxdxbx 3y ago

The argument is always that these companies are using and benefiting from news for free. Now, they aren't. It's weird to create a new kind of property right and then complain that companies are choosing to simply stop doing the thing that triggers the new right.

kmeisthax 3y ago
They didn't want to create a new property right, they wanted money to move out of Google's pockets and into news agencies' pockets. Link rights were just a means to do so. The state chose to use this tool because commercial benefit is very legible[0] to states and copyright is a familiar hammer[1]. It was thought that big tech was gaining $X from having news on their site and that they could make $X * 0.3 of that move into the pockets of news companies. When you see that kind of situation, you invent a new kind of property right to make the people benefiting from the resource have to pay into something. Problem with this model is that it's too simplistic. Big tech doesn't sell news. They sell ads. In fact, the main reason why news companies are ailing today is because big tech siphons off much of the ad revenue that they would have sold directly before the Internet. Google or Facebook can take the 5% that news companies might ask for and just... deduct it from their ad revenue somehow. They control the analytics behind this and news companies are in no position to credibly question them. The only way to stop this madness is to ban economic centralization - i.e. enforce antitrust law by breaking up all these companies and forcing them to be sold to different competing owners. Governments, of course, don't want to do that. This is not because they've suddenly become right-libertarians or ancaps. This is because large monopolies are both legible and corrigible[2]. Google, Facebook, or Reddit is far more likely to pay a 5% link tax than, say, hundreds of individual Fediverse instance operators. This is, of course, a regulatory curse - the bigger you make the organization, the more likely that organization can exert power back upon your government. This is not solely the function of generalized abstract "corruption." Economic power is itself a form of political power and letting companies grow too big is like Congress delegating legislative power to the President. [0] Legible meaning that the organization can understand it at an institutional level. [1] As in, if all you have is copyright, everything looks like a nail. [2] Corrigible meaning that the organization is capable of maintaining regulatory controls over the target organization.

by jxdxbx 3y ago

kmeisthax 3y ago

They didn't want to create a new property right, they wanted money to move out of Google's pockets and into news agencies' pockets. Link rights were just a means to do so. The state chose to use this tool because commercial benefit is very legible[0] to states and copyright is a familiar hammer[1]. It was thought that big tech was gaining $X from having news on their site and that they could make $X * 0.3 of that move into the pockets of news companies. When you see that kind of situation, you invent a new kind of property right to make the people benefiting from the resource have to pay into something. Problem with this model is that it's too simplistic. Big tech doesn't sell news. They sell ads. In fact, the main reason why news companies are ailing today is because big tech siphons off much of the ad revenue that they would have sold directly before the Internet. Google or Facebook can take the 5% that news companies might ask for and just... deduct it from their ad revenue somehow. They control the analytics behind this and news companies are in no position to credibly question them. The only way to stop this madness is to ban economic centralization - i.e. enforce antitrust law by breaking up all these companies and forcing them to be sold to different competing owners. Governments, of course, don't want to do that. This is not because they've suddenly become right-libertarians or ancaps. This is because large monopolies are both legible and corrigible[2]. Google, Facebook, or Reddit is far more likely to pay a 5% link tax than, say, hundreds of individual Fediverse instance operators. This is, of course, a regulatory curse - the bigger you make the organization, the more likely that organization can exert power back upon your government. This is not solely the function of generalized abstract "corruption." Economic power is itself a form of political power and letting companies grow too big is like Congress delegating legislative power to the President. [0] Legible meaning that the organization can understand it at an institutional level. [1] As in, if all you have is copyright, everything looks like a nail. [2] Corrigible meaning that the organization is capable of maintaining regulatory controls over the target organization.