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

[Chowderbags]

So in other words it benefits the consumers of news. This isn't bad for people, it's only bad for those who refuse to change their business model. How does it cost more to make subscription-only archived articles available to the public? It's not like storage costs go up, and any decent news site isn't going to see a huge jump in bandwidth. They'd take a hit in revenue, yes, but that's only if they don't look into what other companys (for example, Google itself) do. True, I don't want endless popup advertisements, but a little text ad off to the side isn't going to hurt things.

Then again, I find it ironic that it's the European newspapers that are the ones who are trumpeting this. You'd think rabid corporatists in America would be screaming their heads off if they thought their bottom lines were hurting from Google.

Re:Profit Elsewhere

[Guspaz]

So then you are saying that if people can get their news free on the internet from one source independantly of another source, people won't go to the non-free source?

Well, yes, why would we expect any differently? Here's the thing; it IS possible to make money on the internet. Banner advertising such as Google AdSense makes site owners a lot of money these days, as long as people can make money by putting stuff on websites they can continue to offer it for "free".

So yes, as far as the success of things like Google AdSense is concerned, online content CAN remain free. A good example is Digg. They're making all their money off a SINGLE GOOGLE AD, and now they've got millions in venture capital to grow much faster. Or look at sites like Anandtech that produce a LOT of money managing their own ads, and still produce an enormous amount of original content (More than computer magazines, but they're free).

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Wealth is created only through voluntary trade for mutual benefit. It doesn't just "exist", to be confiscated first come first serve. It is only created by free individuals. In a productive (voluntary) transaction, each party gains as a result of the transaction (+1 and +1). The net sum is positive, and therefore wealth is created. In an instance of theft, or taxing, by contrast, one side gains -- but only at the expense of the other (+1 and -1). The net sum is zero, and therefore no wealth is created (only moved around).

To summarize, wealth is created only through voluntary trade for mutual benefit. Any transaction which employs coercion does not create wealth, but simply transfers it from one party to another.

Re:Profit Elsewhere

[gamer4Life]

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.

Actually what you're doing most likely is search Google, the search engine.

When you search Google News, you won't see a single ad. So therefore, that statement above is correct.

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

[GigsVT]

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.

Economics is not zero-sum. That's a myth made up by people that want to force socialism down everyone's throat.

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.

Re:Profit Elsewhere

[Dun Malg]

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

That's not how the economy works. Money doesn't vanish the first time someone spends it. It goes to someone else, who pays it to someone else, etc. Circulation is the real driving force.

if Google is making a huge profit, someone else is getting less.

It's not a zero-sum game. There's plenty of money for everyone so long as it keeps circulating. The oly way Google can get "someone else's" money is if they directly compete, and in that case it's no longer "their money", it's rightfully Google's.

Re:Profit Elsewhere

[letxa2000]

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.

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.

Re:Profit Elsewhere

[Ravatar]

By uploading their web page to a publicly accessable web server, they have opted in.

Re:Profit Elsewhere

[martin-boundary]

Google is offering a map. The person who uploaded that file is the one breaking the law.

Not quite. Google is offering the images on its image search service, it's offering the cached text in its search service, it's offering the headlines in its news service. That's a lot of stuff it's doing.

Remember, Google is a company, but from the point of view of copyright, it's a single legal entity. So everything it does as a whole matters.

A better example is probably that of a library.

Libraries are explicitly exempt from copyright infringement, and Google is too so long as it complies with the DMCA. But if an owner says they have to stop offering their material, then either Google complies, or they can be sued for infringement. Clearly it's going to be technically extremely difficult to remove all the material promptly, so they've been sued.

Publishing something on the Internet is just like paper publishing -- that work is now subject to indexing and regular quoting rules -- you can use a small segment so long as you give credit (like Google is doing) but may not reproduce the entire article.

The trouble here is that Google is reproducing the entire article if you think about it. Imagine if you go to the library every day, and copy a single phrase in a book. If you do this a few thousand times, you've reproduced the whole book, and it's definitely no longer fair use. That's what Google is doing. They have internal copies of everything, and they serve small (but different) pieces to people.

Again, libraries can do this, but Google has now been explicitly told to stop from the copyright holders. I hope they find a way to license/settle this, because the net will be poorer otherwise.

Re:Profit Elsewhere

[bentcd]

As I understand it, it's the publishers that are complaining rather than the authors. What the publishers are seeing, I suppose, is that in the future, Google will do their job for them. As electronic distribution increases in popularity among your readers, traditional paper publishers will fade into obscurity and modern electronic publishers (e.g., Google) will take over the market.
Of course, it's probably all the same for the /authors/ who is publishing their material, so long as they're doing a good job about it. This conflict isn't really about authors at all (except to use their right to profit etc. as ammunition in the debate). It's about protecting an entrenched market position.

Re:Profit Elsewhere

[Kadin2048]

Actually, you can be quite the diehard capitalist and still believe in some regulation of extreme anticompetitive behavior. You can argue about how much regulation is good or the best ways to apply it all day, but there are certain situations (monopolies, cartels) which the market will not self-correct if they have gone past a certain point and good arguments can be made for government interference to fix them. I think very few people would make the argument that there is not any place for regulation at all.

The "cap" on how big you can get doesn't really exist per se; the limit is on your actions. Regulators in the U.S. generally take a dim view of firms that obviously distort the market away from a competitive model, if that distortion hurts consumers. The limits on dumping and market distortion that help consumers (in the short term anyway) are significantly less strict IMO than in Europe.

Also, while America is one of probably the 'most capitalist' major countries in the world, it doesn't mean that there is no demand for regulation to reign in corporations who do things that the citizens don't like. It is a representative democracy -- if you piss off enough voters, eventually you're going to be the subject of a Congressional inquiry, no matter how closely you follow economic theory. (Witness the oil companies.)

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

Re:What Is?

[rolfwind]

Many small publishers are probably scared that they will lose business and Google will become the prominent "publisher" for many smaller low circulation books.

Especially in hobbyist niches, many authors can't hope to make a profit off their work, instead it's done for prestige or the love of the hobby. They lose money by paying the publisher to print their books and spend years selling it for a little above cost.

Eventually cut these middlemen publishers out when authors recognize they can get away from them (maybe like artists and iTunes one day). Or perhaps not. People love hardcopies.

I wonder how this and the coming e-paper revolution would play out. Google could really become poised to become the biggest book publisher in the world, when after browsing the book online, for a fee with 75% going to the author, it can be downloaded to your 8.5"x11" e-paper you use to read all your stuff (effectively your library.)

Re:What Is?

[masklinn]

Check some previous slashdot news, our music labels (as well as some other stupid lobbys) have decided to become about 42 times worse than the American ones in a single move by trying to ban open-source and free (as in freedom) software.

Re:What Is?

[sd_diamond]

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.

Wow. I'd like to have that printer. Where'd you get it?

Oh no

[saskboy]

I just made a list of things, and Slashdot will be making ad money from the list of other people's software being here:
http://sf.net/

http://digg.com/

http://grisoft.com/

Someone sue Slashdot! Quickly now!

Re:Oh no

[booch]

It's even worse than I thought!

I own a small store, and a lot of people come in to browse and don't buy anything.

The bus companies are making money off of people who come into my store!

In answer to the question...

[Shadow Wrought]

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

Re:In answer to the question...

[Belseth]

The issue isn't about printing becoming obsolete but writing as a profession. At first it was just E-Books or digitized material that was at risk but now they are starting to scan in printed books and making them availible. How many professional writers will there be if they can no longer sell their work? The cost of printing and distributing written material in some ways has protected the profession but digitized material can be reproduced at little or no cost so it can spread through the internet like a virus. If traditional publishing ceases to exist it won't be a triumph for the internet it'll be a loss for humanity because many talented writers will have to find other professions. Everyone talks about it being a benefit to writers but so far most methods of distribution through the web have failed or involve giving away the writers work. Big business will always survive what is at risk or the livelihoods of artists and creative people. The more it cuts into corporate profits the more they'll turn the screws on the artists and pay less and less for their. You have to remember for every successful writer there's a thousand starving ones. Few get rich and even now most can't make a decent living at it.

Appropriate response

[Todd Knarr]

Google to European publishers: "OK, if you guys don't want your content indexed, we won't index it. And we'll remove it from our database while we're at it."

European publishers, a month later: "Why have visits to our sites dropped by 80% since Google stopped stealing uor content?!"

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.

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.

Re:Get a brain, moran!

[grcumb]

"Fark cliche. He means 'moran'."

That may well be, but Irishmen around the world are still itching to kick the sh*t out of him.

8^)

Re:Get a brain, moran!

[houghi]

This is the same excuse that spammers use: If you don't want it, you can unsubscribe. In this case with adding a robot.txt

Why not a robot.txt that tells whay you DO want to be indexed. No robot.txt, no addition to any searchengine.

Re:Get a brain, moran!

[AK Marc]

This is the same excuse that spammers use: If you don't want it, you can unsubscribe.

If only that worked for spammers. If you could unsubscribe (one file to block all spammers like robots.txt would be nice) from them, they wouldn't be spammers.

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:Robots.txt

[sijo]

Why spend 30 seconds writing a robots.txt when you can simply sue?

Re:Robots.txt

[Ruprecht the Monkeyb]

Because they want Google to index them so people come to their site. In other words, they not only want to have their cake and eat it too, they want someone else to bring it to their doorstep and pay them for the privilege of delivering it.

Business model

[superbrainpanic]

Most modern online publishers seek and profit from search engine, RSS agregators, etc exposure. Maybe the old media business is just becoming obsolete? Aren't the capitalists allways telling us we can't argue with the market?

Another incompetent publisher pointing fingers.

[ip_freely_2000]

'This is unlikely to be sustainable for publishers in the longer term.'

Search engines have been in common use for almost 15 years now. How much of a 'longer term' do you need?

Besides, Search Engines only point to content. Publishers should enhance their content with proper use f metadata to drive traffic to sites with grrat content people WILL pay for.

In the meantime, it's all just sour grapes.

step-by-step

[TheSHAD0W]

Step 1: Web publishers in Europe sue search engines to stop them from "stealing" their content.

Step 2: Web publishers in Europe sue search engines to force them to reindex their servers after their customers can no longer find them and their competitors, who were happy to be indexed, get all the traffic.

Step 3: Web publishers in Europe sue search engines to recover for "damages" since the engines are using their intellectual property - despite the fact that the search engines are now forced to use that property by court order.

Step 4: Web publishers in Europe are lined up against the wall and shot as the internet collapses from an excess of stupidity.

So let them turn away the search 'bots

[crovira]

Its just a root level notation anyway.

Then they can keep their materials nice and safe and away from the prying eyes
of potential customers.

Search is NOT costing THEM a friggin's dime, if fact or in sales.

If they sit on their books, they'll just get their lunch eaten from them by somebody else'; somebody who put his material in searchable form so that people can find it, then buy it.

Nobody'll ever know about THEIR damn books and nobody'll buy 'em either.

Easy Solution For Google

[rolfwind]

Cut them off. If they don't want exposure, stop indexing them.

They'll come crawling back a month later anyway.

Group: Online content cannot remain free

It's not free, in exchange for my attention, you get to put up banner ads.

I believe many non-pron sites that started out as pay-for ended up offering a free way to view their sites - like Salon.com where you have to view a specific amount of ads before you get to the article. Or you can sign up and not deal with any of it - it's a great solution - choice to the consumer and win/win both ways.

It's the consumers' fault!

[grimJester]

Balsemao said consumers were drawn online by free content but this needed to change, he said.

"The value of content must be understood by consumers so that new business models can evolve.

Yeah. Not only must those who provide free content realize that those who provide equal or worse content must get to charge for their equal or inferior product; those who read free content must understand that it's better for everyone if they choose to pay for an alternative, without getting any more than they would get for free.

Balsemao, if you're reading this, pay me or my new business model will never evolve!

Google News - Advertising

[markpapadakis]

According to Eric Schmidt, advertising on Google News is a simple matter of priority and importance related to other things in their TODO list. To them, adding more news sources is more important than placing the ads - but he makes a point that ads will come sooner or later. Interesting presentation by the way.

So it breaks their outdated system

[thogard]

Publishers have the same problem that the record companies have. They could produce far more content than the shops can deal with. The RIAA isn't about music, its about getting little bits of plastic moved through the checkouts at shops. Book publishers aren't about literature, its about moving dead trees through the checkouts at shops. There are now millions of people who have better facilities to make music than the Beetles had so there is a potential for a million times more records to be produced. The RIAA's (and the shops) business model can't cope with that and neither can the book publishers.

I listened to Stephen King talk about the modern publishing business. He is convinced it has been messed up so bad for so long that no decent new author is ever likely to get published. He uses his wife's work as an example. He thinks she is a better author than he is yet the only ones that want to publish her work are using his name to sell the book. He also mentioned that the big book stores (B&N, Boarders) who stack narrow and deep are killing the hope of many authors where the smaller book shops would stock wide but shallow and would order a copy of a book or two and if they sold, would report it to the NYT top 100. Then Wal-mart would look at the things in the top 20 that they hadn't sold and buy a million copies of each which would then mess up the top 10 stats. A decade ago the data being reported for the NYT best seller list was already not very useful and he fears that it will soon be meaningless.
If you ever get a chance to hear Stephen King speak, go listen to him. He's a very good presenter even if your not into his books.

ObSouthPark

[sconeu]

Step 5: ???

Step 6: PROFIT!

note: self-modded down with no karma bonus

I call bullshit

[Howzer]

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.

Re:I call bullshit

[martin-boundary]

Bullshit right back to you.

What do you call the Google cache? If you answer anything other than substantial screen scraping, then ding! play again.

The only leg Google have to stand on is the DMCA, which allows them to infringe copyright so long as they play common carrier. One of the requirements for immunity is that when asked, they promptly remove copyrighted material.

Now, Google literally steals the contents of millions of web pages, which most people have no problem with. However, a small number of news publishers and media sources (like those publishers and AFP) do pipe up and say no. Google has to comply, or likely lose in court. That's what they did when the scientologists piped up.

So far, so good. Trouble is, most news snippets and pictures on the net are syndicated, which means that all that stuff that gets archived by Google isn't owned by the small web operators who might not have a problem with seeing it in the cache, but it's owned by the media creators, who actually do object. So Google should remove it by the DMCA, but it's a technical nightmare. That's why they prefer to make a big fuss and go to court: if they followed the DMCA, there would be very little actual free news content left on the web, except blogs.

The other way out for Google is to actually legally license the use of the copyrighted material, exactly like all the other websites which sign up for syndication. But my guess is that they're afraid it would cost them an arm and a leg, so they'd rather fight in court.

The rest of your rant has nothing to do with copyright issues. If Google wants to offer critical opinions on consumer products, why not?

Re:Does not reproduce content?

[HTH NE1]

Google News links don't provide cache links.

I've also found that some Google News links can't be found on Google proper. I discovered that when trying to follow a news link where the site pretended to be down when you tried to access that particular story directly (other accesses to the same site went through fine). Later a different version of the story was up that didn't match Google News' blurb.

ok, opt-out

[eyeball]

I wish there was a way for these companies to opt-out. Sure they'll fracture the internet. Eventually they'll realize that search engines will bring users to their competitors, but by then it will probably be too late. Maybe that's why they want to change the way the net works for them en-mass. In any case, I would love to see the publishers make a single dollar of what Google gets in ad revenues in Google's absence.

There are plenty of examples of industries that make money off the demands generated by others, without paying tribute to the industry creating the demand. Computer manufacturers make money off the demand generated by internet. Radio manufacturers make money off of radio programming. Sure it gets sticky when you're talking about copyright, but even then there's precedence. TV Guide makes money indexing TV programming. Book review magazines make moneys off the books they review.

Legal interpretation, and why do we care anyway?

[Ruff_ilb]

"European publishers warned Tuesday that they cannot keep allowing Internet search engines such as Google Inc. to make money from their content." Ok, what do they plan to do about it... I don't quite understand the legal implications of this, but it doesn't exactly seem like a standard case of copyright infringement to me. Even assuming that they could get anything on Google for this, that just means Google will drop them from everything in the future. Speaking as someone who gets a lot of their news off of the internet, I know that publishers demanding for their content to be hidden from search engines probably won't help them. If they just want it removed from the ads, I bet google can just say that the truely practicable way to have their content have nothing to do with the ads is to tell them that their content can have nothing to do with anything from the standard search engine to gmail to adsense. I think that the publishers who don't embrace the internet as a new medium for communication and find ways to work against it, not with it (for working against google isn't a very productive way to facilitate communication over the internet) are doomed to failure as we use the internet for more and more tasks. Heck, these companies measure things in terms of readers, you'd think they'd want as much coverage as they can get. The more I look like this it looks like a few whiny companies looking to make a few bucks.

European web publishers? Who cares?

[WarwickRyan]

The best isn't even a commercial venture..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/

I have come to a realization

[jandrese]

I now realize one basic truth of the World Wide Web, if you create something useful and popular, eventually someone is going to sue you for it. No matter what you do, the fact that you've found something useful is going to be threatening to someone and they're going to sue you (usually for millions of dollars) for it.

Every new web business should be prepared for a lawsuit at some point, no matter what they do. How many retarded suits have people brought against Google now? Even Slashdot gets lawsuit threats every now and then. Another thing you have to do is get a good idea of your rights and make sure you call people's bluff when they send harassment lawsuits at you (happens ALL of the time on the web).

To the publishers...

[laughingcoyote]

To: M. Amoron, owner, Jackass Publishing.

From: I. Cheatem, attorney-at-law.

Dear Sir,

Attached to my email, you will find a two-line file entitled "robots.txt". The 4-year-old who designed your website should copy it into your top-level web directory. This file is essentially an instruction to Google's web spider to direct people to your competitors rather then you.

My client Google believes in respecting these wishes. We have happily de-listed your site.

On a related note, I know some excellent bankruptcy attorneys in your country. In a couple months' time when you come to need one, I will be happy to make a recommendation.

(Up) Yours,

I. Cheatem, attorney-at-law.

What's the baseline rule?

[cfulmer]

There are two generic possible default rules of copyright: (1) you have to ask permission before copying (or other uses), and (2) The copyright owner has to tell you if he denies permission.

Rule (2) used to be the default rule, at least in the U.S. -- if you didn't mark your content with the (C) logo or otherwise indicate that it is under copyright, you lost your right to sue. (That's not quite how it worked, but close enough...)

Rule (1) is now the current rule -- everything is presumed to be under copyright and does not need to be marked in order to be protected. The change isn't huge, at least from a practical standpoint, because most people marked their work before the change (doing so wasn't costly) and anybody who wants to copy would go back to the publisher in either case. And,the penalty for not marking was pretty severe. There was also not much demand for widespread copying.

It seems to me that rule (2) makes the most sense for search engines and other content aggregators, and happens to be the one that's built into the 'net. After all, most websites want to be searched -- the entire reason you put things on the web is so people will come find it and look at your website. Search engines help that. In addition, it's hugely more efficient for websites to say whether they want to be indexed or not than for the search engines to ask permission from each website. In fact, having to ask permission would make search engines impossible. And, besides, robots.txt files have been around almost since the first webserver. It's easy.

In the US, I suspect that what a search engine does would have to be considered fair use. Probably the most important of the 4 "Fair Use" factors is "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyright material" -- providing a search capability, even if it also provides links to competitors, has to be a net positive good for a website. Two other of the 4 factors seem to lean in favor of fair use also: (1) "the purpose and character of the use" (basically, a search engine helps people find your content), and (2) "the nature of the copyrighted work" (a web page, which, by nature is intended to be searched.)

(IANAL yet.)

there is a very simple solution

[Pr0xY]

The solution to this problem is simple, if you don't want people to have access to your material, don't put it on the internet. Sure there will be a certain degree of piracy regarding these materials, but that would be far less widespread. Realistically, if you publish something on a website, well it's kinda just "out there" and if you expect people not to find it, or better yet, expect people not to still have it after you take it down, well you live in a fantasy world. IMHO everything on a legitimate website is fairgame for copying so long as the original authors are properly credited.

I suppose the issue really is with sites like the New York Times where they ask for a free membership to view their content and expect a certain amount of ad revenue from the viewers. And I am sure they will get annoyed when someone uses the NYT link generator (http://nytimes.blogspace.com/genlink) to access the site without logging in, or worse yet, mirrors the story on there own site (while crediting the original source of course). But I mean common, what did they expect to happen?

It's not that I don't think people have a right to control their content, but more that I think trying to enforce those rights is impossible. Get with the times people.

proxy

Re:Note to publishers:

[Pharmboy]

I'm not like you. I didn't read much news at all I started on the net in 95. (I'm 40) Now I still don't buy the paper (wife gets Sundays for ads) but I see a lot of ads with the online news that I use Google to find, then I go to the individual sites. They get to show me ads, get a few cents each time.

As for books, I have lots of ebooks, and I seldom read them. They are great for greping to find specific stuff, mainly tech manuals but little else for my purposes. But I am just like most serious readers, I prefer dead trees for real reading. My hardbook purchasing has increase, many fold, since the internet came out. So I don't buy the old "we can't make a living!" cry. Either a person loves to read or they don't, and the net introduces reading.

Here is what the internet *REALLY* does for book authors: If you are a big famous author, nothing much. If you are new, or write obscure works, it gives you higher exposure cheap, and more people will buy your book simply because more people have heard about it. Now, this MIGHT result in lower sales for famous writers, because they have some competition.

Similar (but admittedly different) to the RIAA. Its about CONTROL, not protection. Publishers want to protect their old way of doing things, and keeping the independents out is a great way. Regardless, I will still go shop at Borders, shop online with Amazon and BN. I will still shop Goodwill, Salvation Army and used book stores.

Google might get me to buy more books, but they damn sure won't get me to buy less.

I AM a European publisher (even if a small one)

[lowieken]

"It is fascinating to see how these companies 'help themselves' to copyright-protected material, build up their own business models around what they have collected, and parasitically, earn advertising revenue off the back of other people's content,"

Parasitically? Symbiotically! User profiling for Google, traffic and sales for publishers. I'm happy to have Google index my publications!

Have a look at my publications of classical guitar sheet music. Yes, small scale and non-profit publishing are also publishing!

The divide is widening between consumer friendly content and consumer hostile content. Commons oriented versus fenced-off content. Without the big content guys molding copyright rules to their will, the result would be obvious. Count in rule bending, and we're in for an exciting match!

The principle of Arbitrage. Google is a broker

[goombah99]

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.

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".

In related news...

[JeremyALogan]

In related news a local gas (petrol) station attendant was sued for providing directions. "All the time people would come by and ask me how to get to the local motel. Now I have to tell them that there is no local motel. How' was I to expect the motel would sue me for telling them how to get there?"

the wording is telling

[belmolis]

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.

Precious gold ring

[uberdave]

About this ring of yours... anything, um, special about it? Was it part of a collection, one of a set of nine perhaps, or is it one ring. It's my birthday, and I wants something... precious.

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.

Almost....

[abb3w]

I wonder how this and the coming e-paper revolution would play out. Google could really become poised to become the biggest book publisher in the world, when after browsing the book online, for a fee with 75% going to the author, it can be downloaded to your 8.5"x11" e-paper you use to read all your stuff (effectively your library.)

Almost.

You would still want to allow for a cut for editors, for authors willing to accept the help. Many slush pile authors REALLY need to keep their day jobs, and even tentacled horrors that crawl from the deep sea of slush are much more paletable after baking under the harsh glare of a disciplined editor's gimlet eye. I have no doubt that many authors would find themselves with a larger piece of a much smaller pie without editorial assistance.

Also, Print-on-demand grows ever more economical, approaching basic mass market publishing price. Imagine Google contracts with a POD publisher, and maybe also offers salaried positions to a couple talented-and-open-minded editors. Google Press makes the books on-line browsable. Editions are available as your suggested downloadable e-paper, but also paperback, trade (oversize) paperback, hardbound, or acid free leather. More costly materials, of course, mean higher cover (?) price, with a smaller percentage of sale price (but larger absolute amount) going to the author.

Of course, editorial talent is almost as hard to find as authorial talent. Still, it has possibilities....

no argument...

[alizard]

I'm a published author myself... Linux how-to articles at this point... try searching on:
alizard Linux

If I write a book, I very definitely want my stuff online and searchable.

If my book is any good, the more people who see it, the more are going to buy it. Making the book good is my problem, and to a smaller extent, that of my editors. Make the book invisible and nobody will buy it.

Isn't making money off IP content what publishing is supposed to be about? Not making content invisible or putting it on sale after locking it into a digital toilet.

BTW, the only real success I know with respect to digital-age publishing is Baen Books.

They make their backlist free and downloadable with no DRM and no brain-dead e-reader software, open in your word processsor or browser. They do the same with their current books, only you have to pay for those.

The first hit is always free is a time honored and sound marketing principle. Once you're read the first several books in a series, the buying decision on the next few is a very easy one to make, especially since the content doesn't have DRM-crapware on it that makes it harder to read where I feel like reading it. They're also cheaper since they don't have to pay print costs, just bandwidth. This isn't hypothetical, I've already bought several of their books and plan on buying 2 or 3 more as soon as I get my next article check.

The French publishers simply want government protection for an industrial-age business model, just like the crapheads at the *AA member labels and studios do... fuck 'em.

What sort of permision does a port imply?

[erice]

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

So, does that mean that listening on port 25 constitutes permission to send you spam?

Copynorms

[tepples]

There are copyrights, and then there are copynorms.

You don't opt into anything someone can do with your content, merely by distributing your content.

True, but a copynorm had developed that when a copyright owner publishes a work on the World Wide Web for anonymous access, the copyright owner intends for it to be seen by as many people as possible, and thus automated systems have the right to cache it verbatim until the copyright owner decides otherwise. In October 1998, the United States Congress codified this copynorm as law in 17 USC 512(b), enacted as a rider to the DMCA.

Re:Copynorms

[cyberformer]

AFP and other agencies could just change the terms of their licensing so that their customers can't post to a server that's indexed by Google News. If they already have, then the online publishers are breaking their contracts (and probably copyright law as well).

teeny-boppers on drugs

[patiodragon]

"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."

How in the world is this "insightful"? Can I turn off these moronic rating things? This is a just plain dumb example. When you go and repay your friend, you have to get the $5 bill from somewhere. You get a job, ask your mom, whatever... but you have NOT increased the money supply at all --just moved it around a bit. The government inflates the money supply to its liking pretty much how they want.

OTOH, now that there is nothing of any real value backing up the money the government prints (first gold, then silver, now "in God we trust") it IS a total scam.

Re:teeny-boppers on drugs

[crazyjimmy]

Well if you don't believe in your $, can I have it?

Re:Profit Elsewhere [OT]

[JesseMcDonald]

The problem with this objection, of course, is that *no* economic system works very well unless its participants are acting in accordance was some approximation of rational self-interest. There are some, such as socialism, which can do without self-interest on the part of the majority, in exchange for placing control over the economy in the hands of a few individuals with no real responsibilities toward their subjects. How, exactly, is such a system in any way an improvement over capitalism?

All forms of democracy require self-interest on the part of the population to prevent a fall into socialism or dictatorship. In fact, there exists no form of government which does *not* have this condition. No government, no matter how well intentioned, can long withstand apathy from its citizenship without straying from its original ideals. Economic systems are subject to the same rule, as all forms of economics, other than capitalism/free-market systems, place control over the economy in the hands of the goverment.