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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."
Assertion 1: "They are screen scraping other people's content"
Assertion 2: "the second they let it be legally defined...a million lawsuits...Google won't have a legal leg to stand on"
Both assertions are, IMO, completely untrue. It is not illegal, and I don't think it's ever been illegal in any jurisdiction, to stand on a street corner and say "Hey! There's a guy selling icecream over there!" Unless you cause a riot, or yell too loud, or block the footpath.
Google News doesn't "screen scrape" any content. They list headlines from news sites. "Hey! There's a guy telling a story over there!" Not illegal. Never will be illegal.
To your second point. There are companies out there, right now, even as we type, called clipping services. They literally cut whole articles out of newspapers, magazines, journals, and compile folders of them according to criteria set by the people who pay them money.
According to you, they "don't have a legal leg to stand on" and yet they are amazingly unsued, making revenue from other people's content. If Google removed the "beta" sign tomorrow, they would still be doing far less than a standard, real-world clipping service.
It's also not illegal to watch someone buy a sports magazine at a newsstand and say "Excuse me sir. Do you mind if I ask you a question? I notice you are into sports. Would you like to buy this fine *related product here*?" Again, if you do this wrong you could be arrested for bugging people, but the act of making a recommendation based on observed public behaviour is not illegal.
"You want the Model A? Well, ma'am, I couldn't help noticing you have two kids in the store with you today. The Model B is specifically designed for families with young children." Not illegal. Never will be illegal.
But, of course, IANAL, and I am simply operating in the plain old world of "logic", not the rarified atmosphere of "the law". Now, those two environments usually intersect, but of course we all know of times when they haven't.
No it's not a matter free versus not free though that matters. It's the principle of arbitrage. If I want to sell my 2000 year old gold ring for its true value and you want to buy a 2000 year old ring the chances we meet are close to nil. Instead I will have to sell my ring in a more liquid market that only values the gold not the age.
Faced with this, Therefore I'm willing to pay a antiquties broker a commission for you to find me. Arbitraging in the stock market are people who look for things that are priced lower than they should be due to inadequate liquidity and buy them then find markets to sell them in. ( Often they do this with options so they don't even actually own the properties. )
In either case arbitraging creates market liqudity which increases the sales value of an item closer to it's optimal value. The seller gets more and should be glad. The reverse can also be true when the arbitrager works for the buyer.
Google is effectively creating a liquid market where none exists. It helps the seller because it connects them to the buyer (reader) of the news (and ads). And it helps the buyer avoid easily found but overpriced news. But in both cases google is adding value and extracting a commision (google ads).
So yes they are adding value and thus entitled to make money. But the seller is not worse off unless they are in the class of sellers who make their money by being easily found but cost a bundle. (e.g. payday loan shop on the corner or the bank loan officer down town.)
But it does seem like the news companies should be able to opt out if they want. Maybe someone should tell them about robots.txt
but instead they are greedy and want a cut of the broker's slice. It's not unheard of: it's Not unlike asking your real estate to give you a cut of the commission on a house that is particularly desirable for an agent to list.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I think that the wording of the European publishers' complaint is telling. They don't complain about Google or others publishing their copyrighted material without their permission, which, if true, would be a valid complaint (and perhaps is true of Google cache, however convenient we may find it). What they actually complain about is the fact that other people are making money from their publications. That is not necessarily a violation of copyright and, in the general case, is not a complaint that should be acted upon.
Suppose that publisher X publishes a book on a controversial topic of wide interest. I write a response to this book which sells well and makes a lot of money. Since my book is a response to publisher X's book, the money (and fame, women, etc. :)) that I received is indeed dependent on the work of Publisher X, but Publisher X has no legal or moral claim on me. The same is true if I compile and publish a bibliography, or make money as a consultant to people who want to know what they ought to read in a certain area. My profit ultimately depends on the work of the publishers, but I don't need their permission and don't owe them a dime.
Chefs and authors of cookbooks do not require the permission of the farmers, ranchers, hunters, and fishermen without whom there would be nothing to cook or to write about, nor do they owe them compensation. These are some of the many ways in which not only culture and science but business develops on the foundation of work done by other people, yet where we do not consider that the permission of those others is required or that any compensation is owed to them.
When the publishers complain that other people are making money from their content, our response should be "so what?". In and of itself that isn't a valid basis for complaint. It just means that they haven't been the ones to seize new opportunities. Copyright holders are granted certain limited privileges pertaining to publication and that is it. Beyond that, other people are perfectly free to do whatever they want.
No kidding. I'm a published author and I'm currently trying to figure out if my publisher is going to get my book listed with Google or if I have to do it myself. One way or another I definitely want my book listed. I can't imagine why an author wouldn't want the contents of his or her book to be searchable on Google.