Online Content Cannot Remain Free

gamer4Life writes "Publishers from Europe are complaining that Internet search engines are making money off their copyright-protected material. 'This is unlikely to be sustainable for publishers in the longer term.', says Francisco Pinto Balsemao, head of the European Publishers Council. These comments are despite the fact that Google does not place ads on their news service. 'Search engines do not reproduce content. They help users find content by pointing to where it exists on the Web.', says Google spokesman, Steve Langdon. This comes after a French news service sued Google for at least $17.5 million."

Comments

Profit Elsewhere

[biocute]

I don't think the European Publishers Council is only referring to Google News, but the whole idea of people start relying on search engines to get their news feed. And sometimes, you will be able to find a news that is free on one site, and by subscription on another (eg NYTimes vs CNN).

And what about cached news articles that could have already been removed from the news site and turned into a pay-per-view article?

I guess there is only so much money to go around in the economy, if Google is making a huge profit, someone else is getting less.

These comments are despite the fact that Google does not place ads on their news service

But when I searched for "DeLay", there are few "news" links at the very top of the result page, and a sponsored link by www.nytimes.com.

Re:Profit Elsewhere

[AKAImBatman]

And sometimes, you will be able to find a news that is free on one site, and by subscription on another (eg NYTimes vs CNN).

Which is how Capitalism is supposed to work. I realize that many companies are just looking after their own interests, but they probably don't even realize that they're actually being anti-competitive and that "fair-use" is intended to cover exactly this type of situation.

Re:Profit Elsewhere

[ceoyoyo]

Google news gives you a little snippet of the article, then a link to the page it came from -- just like their search does. So, just like search, you click on the link and go to the copyright owner's page -- complete with revenue generating ads.

If the copyright owner doesn't like this he should block Google from indexing his pages and watch what happens.

Re:Profit Elsewhere

[IAmTheDave]

Agreed. Also, arguing that content that was once free is now pay-per-view is (excuse me) stupid, because once information is free it tends to remain free. Arguing that information already disseminated may now be locked up is half the reason that Secrecy News and the FAS exist. (It's a comparison.)

I understand (to a degree) copyright, but a redaction in previously public information by any party - government or private - is hardly ever good.

Re:Profit Elsewhere

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

No, this is a astro-turfed meme. Maybe the parent poster isn't a shill himself, but when people who don't even know what copyright is, are standing around the coffee machine at work, and the subject comes up about how google is stealing from people who write books, something fishy is going on.

Google sends business to these retards, if anything. Those that can't make that simple connection need to do us all a favor, and stop breathing.

Re:Profit Elsewhere

[susano_otter]

Clearly, what you don't understand about "the states" is that it's ruled by the consensus of its citizens, most of whom are not actually extreme capitalists. In fact, there happens to be a very large and vocal leftist faction in our population and political arena, which is why you actually see a hodgepodge of assorted compromise policies, rather than the extremist situation you were somehow expecting. But why were you expecting an extremist situation anyway?

Re:Profit Elsewhere

[sco08y]

GP: I guess there is only so much money to go around in the economy

P: You might think that, wouldn't you? But no. Spend all you want, the governments will print more. Of course, the money you have now becomes less valuable as a result, but if you think we don't have inflation by design

First: the notion that there is "only so much money." It is true that there is are only so many nominal dollars/yen/etc. However, you can make money right in your own home! Just get a piece of paper and write "IOU $5" and give it to a friend. Congratulations. You have just increased the total amount of money in the world by $5.

That is, assuming you actually intend to pay your friend back *and* your friend trusts you to do so.

Now, governments *do* need to print money. Not to cause inflation, but because without enough cash people can't do business. Your IOU only works as well as people trust you to pay it back, the five dollar IOU from the federal government is viewed as considerably more reliable.

In the case of hyperinflation you see that a government is printing tons of money and the currency is becoming devalued and make the post hoc error that printing money causes the devaluing of the currency. But what's really happening is that people are losing faith that the government is good on its debts. In wartime Germany, was it the printing of money that made people lose faith in the mark, or was it the fact that they were losing the war?

When you understand that markets are a natural means of communicating information about scarcity of resources and talent you see why the idea that someone can "design" something like inflation is false. Maybe they can significantly influence it or maybe the whole regulating thing is a farce and politicians just take credit for upswings and blame others for downswings. At any rate, the sum value of everything in the world is most directly influenced by creativity and ingenuity, not accounting tricks.

Re:Profit Elsewhere

[Arandir]

I guess there is only so much money to go around in the economy, if Google is making a huge profit, someone else is getting less.

That is a myth. The economy is not a zero sum game. Everytime you create something that someone else values, you have created new value.

Google and other search engines are creating new value by offering services that would not otherwise exist. There is a value to online news stories from European publishers, but there is more value in the market when they are combined with the search engines to find them. The former does not lose money when the latter makes money.

Of course, the publishers still need to stay current and remain flexible. Just because there is now more value in the market doesn't mean an individual publisher is guaranteed a piece of it.

What Is?

[ackthpt]

'This is unlikely to be sustainable for publishers in the longer term.', says Francisco Pinto Balsemao, head of the European Publishers Council.

The panicking and running around with hands in the air, shouting "the sky is falling"?

I can begin to tell how many authors I've ripped off by reading their entire tomes on-line, snippet by snippet in Google search results.

I haven't.

On the contrary, like Langdon alludes, I hear or see something, pop a few words into Google to do a search, next thing you know my bookshelf, real oak(!), is jamb packed with books.

What do they really want, poverty and security through obscurity?

the new zork times book review shall not quote, nor say bad words about my book, in cold oatmeal or i shall sue

In answer to the question...

[Shadow Wrought]

Any industry tied to a technology lends itself to obsolecence. Why should printing be different?

Get a brain, moran!

[Rude Turnip]

"Publishers from Europe are complaining that Internet search engines are making money off their copyright-protected material. 'This is unlikely to be sustainable for publishers in the longer term.', says Francisco Pinto Balsemao, head of the European Publishers Council."

What a whiny little biatch. *Every* news outlet with an online presence has one of two choices:

1. Do not make your content openly accessible through the HTTP protocol and charge a fee.
2. Use robots.txt, which Google honours.

Until one of those two actions are taken, Francisco, you have FREELY VOLUNTEERED to offer your content to news aggregators and anyone with a web browser. This is a choice you can make *right now*, instead of complaining like a baby.

Google News

[Michalson]

These comments are despite the fact that Google does not place ads on their news service

That's because the news service is "beta" forever. In fact citing Google News is actually a direct prove of the outside assertion - Google has kept it beta for years (and isn't like to ever make it a "real" service) simply because there is no true model they could legally use. They are screen scraping other people's content and the second they let it be legally defined as anything but an academic exercise (by removing the beta mark or sticking ads on it) they will get hit with a million lawsuits and Google won't have a legal leg to stand on.

Google News, along with most other Google "services", are special cases. Unlike companies that are trying to make money from their services, Google's main goal is to use them to mine personal information from millions of visitors. So it doesn't matter if their software is beta forever, as long as they can have a system that reads your personal email and indexes all keywords found against the GUID that tracks you across every Google site, they will be happy because they can sell expensive targeted advertising on the main Google search and anywhere else that won't get them into legal trouble.

Robots.txt

[queenb**ch]

If they don't want to be spidered, let them turn on the robots.txt. Sheesh! Since they can control what Google has for them in their search results, I fail to see how Google is responsible for that.

Besides, if you're selling content, don't you want people to know you have it? How are they supposed to know that they can buy it otherwise?

Just how big a DUH! does this get?

2 cents,

Queen B

Re:Appropriate response

[HTH NE1]

They probably think they can gather enough traffic just on their names and from advertising in other media (television, radio, other print media).

But really, they'd rather control what stories their readers see and protect against their opinions being listed against opinions of competing publications. They feel they aggregate stories just fine and Google is undermining their wor and discouraging readers from being brand-aware.

When was the last time you visited a site's article on Google News and wanted to visit the home page of the site? A site's front-page cover story means nothing.

Perhaps they recognize that search engine results are effectively free targeted advertising for them. They just see the loss of control over what is and isn't news, and with that a loss of identity in the on-line news business.

Re:Profit Elsewhere [OT]

[Julian Morrison]

I guess there is only so much money to go around in the economy, if Google is making a huge profit, someone else is getting less.

That's an economic mistake and an important one, because it leads to bad policy. I'll explain how it's mistaken.

Value is the value of a thing to a person. Profit is the increase in value after a trade, versus before. So the seller profits by gaining money (wanted more) and losing product (wanted less). The buyer profits by losing money (wanted less) and gaining product (wanted more).

Wealth is the ability to achive personal goals. If you have more money, that's useful to you, so it's wealth. If you get something you need more, lose something you need less, then you have more wealth. Therefore profit produces personal wealth for both parties.

Some of the things you trade for, increase your efficiency. They let you achieve things you couldn't before. When other people's goals depend on your efficiency, your gain in wealth translates into a gain in societal wealth: everybody can achieve their goals a little easier. Therefore profit produces (on average) societal wealth for everyone.

Inflation and deflation reflect the usefulness of money. The limit of inflation is useless money. Infinite paper, nothing to buy, therefore infinite prices. The limit of deflation is getting everything for free. They relate to societal wealth. Wealth drops, money stays the same: inflation. Wealth rises, money stays the same: deflation. Therefore, profit is deflationary.

Given deflation, the same amount of money buys more. Therefore if anyone makes a profit, everyone makes a profit. This is the true virtue of the capitalist system, and it's the reason why Google's profits don't mean "someone else is getting less".

Re:Profit Elsewhere [OT]

[NixLuver]

Looks wonderful on paper, doesn't it?

The problem is that the philosophy you have expressed only inheres in a capitalism inhabited solely by those who act in rational self-interest. Rational means considering the ramifications of one's actions. Unfortunately, both producers and consumers in their various guises have proven to be terrible at this game. We live in a society where consumers are unreasonably swayed by marketing and the oft-championed 'excellence of product' that capitalism encourages is virtually unrecognizable. Frequently - and by frequently, I mean, say, 50% of the time or more, consumers purchase things, and feel that they have been taken advantage of. In many cases, they are right.

I am constantly amazed at the fact that those who deplore social anarchy the most are often the biggest champions of financial anarchy - Capitalism. And just like social anarchy, it only lasts as long as it takes for one player to accumulate enough 'stuff' to influence others, and then we have a de facto government, or a de facto monopoly.

Re:Read between the lines

[Ph33r th3 g(O)at]

Just because I don't post a sign on my front door that says "Keep Out" doesn't give you permission to wander in and help yourself to a snack.

No, but listening on port 80 constitutes permission for me to make requests of your server.