4 ms·

To be fair, there were a few positive/neutral articles, for example by Frank Rieger, a popular member of the Chaos Computer Club, in the FAZ (Frankfurter Allgem

To be fair, there were a few positive/neutral articles, for example by Frank Rieger, a popular member of the Chaos Computer Club, in the FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) but they are in the minority. Of course, there is the obvious ignorance regarding technical facts like: "robots.txt is from the stone age. On or off for everyone is the only possibility" [1] which reminds me a lot of the discussion we had some time back regarding internet filters. But the one thing I find really dangerous is that they (meaning major newspapers, politicians, etc.) managed to spin the story so that the narrative is now "greedy google" vs hard working journalists. I applaud google for their efforts (and I am fully aware of their commercial interests in this matter) but I slowly begin to think they did their cause a disservice. If a discussion takes place its always about google and their lobbying. The extend of this law which could lead to bloggers being sued (btw: a side effect of the very fuzzy written law which leaves a lot open and almost certainly will need a court to decide on the details) when they link to news articles is almost never mentioned. One last thing: Recently, two big news newspapers had to shut down and that print sales are declining is nothing new. I cant remember the last time I bought a newspaper and I am also pretty sure that although blogs/twitter/whatever are a good addition they cant replace classical media. There is definately a need for the discussion for new sources of incomes for classical paper based medias as ad sales from their online publication wont cut it. Perhaps something like a "culture/media tax/flatrate" as we currently have with the GEZ (for the financing of the public tv stations)? I dont know, but the #lsr is certainly not the way to go. [1]http://www.golem.de/news/leistungsschutzrecht-springer-vergleicht-google-mit-den-taliban-1212-96172.html http://www.golem.de/news/leistungsschutzrecht-springer-vergl...

leoh 14y ago
"But the one thing I find really dangerous is that they (meaning major newspapers, politicians, etc.) managed to spin the story so that the narrative is now "greedy google" vs hard working journalists." Isn't there a certain degree of truth in this? Truly, there is a big problem if the rates for borrowing content is too high. But I think what the German public is responding to is how journalism has changed and not in ways that are necessarily positive. There is far less incentive to be a good journalist now since the quality of a given article is likely much lower than in the past -- research is more limited, articles are written in a greater hurry, even some articles these days are largely written by computer or by individuals overseas. What this law is reasonably trying to address is that content of whatever form -- be it newspaper articles, images, whatever -- has inherent value that should be recognized. Surely enforcing that value with an iron fist like the RIAA is not the right way to go. But allowing free expropriation (even of abstracts) may also be unfair. I think a good analogy, fifty years ago, would be a newspaper that sends out people to read other newspapers very early in the morning (say at 5 AM) and then produces its own newspaper at 6. Surely such a thing would not have been possible fifty years ago, but something similar is possible today with the advent of the internet. If this behavior had occurred fifty years ago and hadn't been regulated, imagine what would have happened: the overall quality of newspapers would have been diluted and the incentive to produce good articles would have likely declined. Now, of course, this isn't quite perfect. Again, Google is borrowing very small snippets. And surely -- if anyone remembers this -- the French courts were wrong several years ago when they allowed some newspapers to sue Google for simply posting a few sentences or a link to an article. But what if newspapers could charge a modest fee commensurate to the value an article link is to Google? Over time, the fees could certainly accrue. The question, I think, is how high these fees are and how this sort of regulation is imposed.
- schabernakk 14y ago
  I think the problem here is that this goes against the basic premise of the web itself and hypermedia. What about my blog where I post the (in my opinion) most important news of the day and link to the sources. Okay, those links are manually curated. What if I write a script that automatically posts (tweets?) all the articles I visit. Ok I am not a search engine but where do you draw the line? My point is that this is very hard to define and write down as a law. Is a discussion necessary? Absolutely. Do we need a strong press? You bet your ass we do. Do we perhaps need to restructure the current model and fund the fourth power? Yeah, I dont know. Is this the way? Certainly not. But I think this is only another symptom of a trend currently manifestating where people with ties and no insight into the matter try to control and profit from a medium they are just beginning to understand. The ITU conference, this guy in the UK who wanted to sue everyoneone retweeting an article,....
- jamesbritt 14y ago
  [C]ontent of whatever form -- be it newspaper articles, images, whatever -- has inherent value that should be recognized. I don't buy the assertion of inherent value. There's a ton of crap out there. If there's any value in content it's subjective, not inherent. People who are so convinced of the value of their content are free to erect a paywall and rake in the cash. But what if newspapers could charge a modest fee commensurate to the value an article link is to Google? It' perhaps something to consider, but it has to be a consensual act, where the value is negotiated. Google may already be providing commensurate value by driving traffic to a site.
  - czr80 14y ago
    If it had zero value why would Google be interested in it?
    - derleth 14y ago
      > If it had zero value why would Google be interested in it? Again, value is subjective. Even if you think it has zero value, even if every engineer at Google thinks it has zero value, it might have value to someone out there. If nothing else, it could be a part of a corpus linguistics study.
summerdown2 14y ago
> Recently, two big news newspapers had to shut down and that print sales are declining is nothing new. I cant remember the last time I bought a newspaper and I am also pretty sure that although blogs/twitter/whatever are a good addition they cant replace classical media. There is definately a need for the discussion for new sources of incomes for classical paper based medias as ad sales from their online publication wont cut it. ... I like Clay Shirky's comment: > Round and round this goes, with the people committed to saving newspapers demanding to know “If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?” To which the answer is: Nothing. Nothing will work. There is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the internet just broke. and The newspaper people often note that newspapers benefit society as a whole. This is true, but irrelevant to the problem at hand; “You’re gonna miss us when we’re gone!” has never been much of a business model. http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/ http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking...
- lhnn 14y ago
  Well, if we're going to miss them when they're gone, then we should figure out a goddamned way to replace it, rather than saying, "The Internet is just too much revolution for you to handle, man." Full-time investigative journalism cannot go away, for the sake of society. It's a matter of how we will continue it, or what model and best practices will supplant it. iReport doesn't count.
  - summerdown2 14y ago
    I'm not sure we are going to miss them when they're gone. The point of Clay's article, as I read it, is that's their argument. In reality, I agree with Clay (and you, I think), which is to say that it isn't newpapers we might miss, but solid journalism. The interesting question is whether these are indpendent variables. I.e. could we have newspapers without good journalism and good journalism without newspapers. I think a good case can be made that journalism has been declining for years, irrespective of the effect of the internet. I also think it's quite possible we may end up with good journalism and no newspapers. I don't think wikileaks is the answer, for example, but such an organisation couldn't exist twenty years ago. I think we'll see a lot more attempts to create a 21st century journalism model before one sticks.
ajuc 14y ago
After last few years here in Poland I've stopped believing in good reporting. No matter what you say, press is going to present it the way it wants, and it's impossible to break the glass and say to public what you really want. If there's order to show you're stupid, you will look stupid, no matter what you say. If there's order to show you're great - you will look and sound great. I wish traditional massmedia fast demise. There's nothing there worth saving at this point.

leoh 14y ago

"But the one thing I find really dangerous is that they (meaning major newspapers, politicians, etc.) managed to spin the story so that the narrative is now "greedy google" vs hard working journalists." Isn't there a certain degree of truth in this? Truly, there is a big problem if the rates for borrowing content is too high. But I think what the German public is responding to is how journalism has changed and not in ways that are necessarily positive. There is far less incentive to be a good journalist now since the quality of a given article is likely much lower than in the past -- research is more limited, articles are written in a greater hurry, even some articles these days are largely written by computer or by individuals overseas. What this law is reasonably trying to address is that content of whatever form -- be it newspaper articles, images, whatever -- has inherent value that should be recognized. Surely enforcing that value with an iron fist like the RIAA is not the right way to go. But allowing free expropriation (even of abstracts) may also be unfair. I think a good analogy, fifty years ago, would be a newspaper that sends out people to read other newspapers very early in the morning (say at 5 AM) and then produces its own newspaper at 6. Surely such a thing would not have been possible fifty years ago, but something similar is possible today with the advent of the internet. If this behavior had occurred fifty years ago and hadn't been regulated, imagine what would have happened: the overall quality of newspapers would have been diluted and the incentive to produce good articles would have likely declined. Now, of course, this isn't quite perfect. Again, Google is borrowing very small snippets. And surely -- if anyone remembers this -- the French courts were wrong several years ago when they allowed some newspapers to sue Google for simply posting a few sentences or a link to an article. But what if newspapers could charge a modest fee commensurate to the value an article link is to Google? Over time, the fees could certainly accrue. The question, I think, is how high these fees are and how this sort of regulation is imposed.

schabernakk 14y ago
I think the problem here is that this goes against the basic premise of the web itself and hypermedia. What about my blog where I post the (in my opinion) most important news of the day and link to the sources. Okay, those links are manually curated. What if I write a script that automatically posts (tweets?) all the articles I visit. Ok I am not a search engine but where do you draw the line? My point is that this is very hard to define and write down as a law. Is a discussion necessary? Absolutely. Do we need a strong press? You bet your ass we do. Do we perhaps need to restructure the current model and fund the fourth power? Yeah, I dont know. Is this the way? Certainly not. But I think this is only another symptom of a trend currently manifestating where people with ties and no insight into the matter try to control and profit from a medium they are just beginning to understand. The ITU conference, this guy in the UK who wanted to sue everyoneone retweeting an article,....
jamesbritt 14y ago
[C]ontent of whatever form -- be it newspaper articles, images, whatever -- has inherent value that should be recognized. I don't buy the assertion of inherent value. There's a ton of crap out there. If there's any value in content it's subjective, not inherent. People who are so convinced of the value of their content are free to erect a paywall and rake in the cash. But what if newspapers could charge a modest fee commensurate to the value an article link is to Google? It' perhaps something to consider, but it has to be a consensual act, where the value is negotiated. Google may already be providing commensurate value by driving traffic to a site.
- czr80 14y ago
  If it had zero value why would Google be interested in it?
  - derleth 14y ago
    > If it had zero value why would Google be interested in it? Again, value is subjective. Even if you think it has zero value, even if every engineer at Google thinks it has zero value, it might have value to someone out there. If nothing else, it could be a part of a corpus linguistics study.

summerdown2 14y ago

> Recently, two big news newspapers had to shut down and that print sales are declining is nothing new. I cant remember the last time I bought a newspaper and I am also pretty sure that although blogs/twitter/whatever are a good addition they cant replace classical media. There is definately a need for the discussion for new sources of incomes for classical paper based medias as ad sales from their online publication wont cut it. ... I like Clay Shirky's comment: > Round and round this goes, with the people committed to saving newspapers demanding to know “If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?” To which the answer is: Nothing. Nothing will work. There is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the internet just broke. and The newspaper people often note that newspapers benefit society as a whole. This is true, but irrelevant to the problem at hand; “You’re gonna miss us when we’re gone!” has never been much of a business model. http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/ http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking...

lhnn 14y ago
Well, if we're going to miss them when they're gone, then we should figure out a goddamned way to replace it, rather than saying, "The Internet is just too much revolution for you to handle, man." Full-time investigative journalism cannot go away, for the sake of society. It's a matter of how we will continue it, or what model and best practices will supplant it. iReport doesn't count.
- summerdown2 14y ago
  I'm not sure we are going to miss them when they're gone. The point of Clay's article, as I read it, is that's their argument. In reality, I agree with Clay (and you, I think), which is to say that it isn't newpapers we might miss, but solid journalism. The interesting question is whether these are indpendent variables. I.e. could we have newspapers without good journalism and good journalism without newspapers. I think a good case can be made that journalism has been declining for years, irrespective of the effect of the internet. I also think it's quite possible we may end up with good journalism and no newspapers. I don't think wikileaks is the answer, for example, but such an organisation couldn't exist twenty years ago. I think we'll see a lot more attempts to create a 21st century journalism model before one sticks.

ajuc 14y ago

After last few years here in Poland I've stopped believing in good reporting. No matter what you say, press is going to present it the way it wants, and it's impossible to break the glass and say to public what you really want. If there's order to show you're stupid, you will look stupid, no matter what you say. If there's order to show you're great - you will look and sound great. I wish traditional massmedia fast demise. There's nothing there worth saving at this point.