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EU Publishers Want a Law To Control Online News

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the protect-yourself-right-out-of-the-market dept.

suraj.sun writes with news that European publishers are also seeking ways to "protect" their content from the big bad intertubes. Their rant, termed the "Hamburg Declaration," asks the government to step in with a legislative fix. "Most of the statements in the relatively short declaration, which will surely take its place among thousands of other European declarations on intellectual property and other matters that have come out over the past few years, hinge on the idea that 'universal access to news' does not equal 'free.' In this respect, the publishers want to maintain the democratic ideal of a 'fourth estate' that provides news to an informed citizenry, while simultaneously restricting access to that news to those who can pay for it directly. What sets this declaration apart from the other Hamburg declarations out there, or from the various Geneva declarations or Berlin declarations, is that this one is intended to give the publishers' favorite solution to the news-stealing problem, the Automated Content Access Protocol, the force of law."

22 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. This won't Work by dmacleod808 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    people will gravitate towards free. If they go pay... people will just go elsewhere its simple as that, law or no law.

    --
    There Can Be Only One...
    1. Re:This won't Work by RDW · · Score: 5, Insightful

      'people will gravitate towards free. If they go pay... people will just go elsewhere its simple as that, law or no law.'

      Well, I think we should at least consider the terms of their proposal carefully. Check out the full text below:

      "Hamburg Declaration regarding intellectual property rights

      The Internet offers immense opportunities to professional journalism - but only if the basis for profitability remains secure throughout the digital channels of distribution. This is currently [ERROR! ACAP VIOLATION IN PROGRESS! YOU HAVE EXCEEDED THE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF CHARACTERS ALLOCATED TO THIS NEWS AGGREGATOR! PLEASE DEPOSIT EUR 50 TO READ THE NEXT 100 WORDS OF THIS ARTICLE!]"

  2. If you don't want it indexed, then either by Amazing+Quantum+Man · · Score: 4, Insightful

    1. Don't put it on the web
    2. Learn how to use robots.txt

    --
    Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
    1. Re:If you don't want it indexed, then either by MozeeToby · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You misunderstand their argument. Of course they want it indexed, just look at how many thousands of people look at their news everyday that wouldn't if it weren't indexed. They desperately want that readership... to pay them for the service. They aren't saying "we don't want people to read us", they're saying "we want everyone who reads us to pay for it".

      Saying robots.txt is like telling a hungry 2 year old that they can't have a Popsicle and should go eat a green beans instead. Yeah, the green beans will make them not hungry, but it's the damn Popsicle that they want (incidentally, you'll get about the same response from either group).

    2. Re:If you don't want it indexed, then either by Beetle+B. · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You misunderstand their argument. Of course they want it indexed, just look at how many thousands of people look at their news everyday that wouldn't if it weren't indexed. They desperately want that readership... to pay them for the service. They aren't saying "we don't want people to read us", they're saying "we want everyone who reads us to pay for it".

      Not sure why they can't do this.

      Just post indexing info and excerpts for free, and put the rest behind a pay-wall. Google News will still carry it, and everyone (except readers like me) will be happy.

      --
      Beetle B.
    3. Re:If you don't want it indexed, then either by blahplusplus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It goes beyond just selfishness, the whole point of the free market is the buyer chooses of his own will, making a law to force people to pay for something that they don't want and did not choose freely is the anti-thesis of that.

  3. What garbage by Dr_Ken · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I hope Obama doesn't buy into this stuff. The "fourth estate" has enough clout already.

    --
    "If you want to know what happens to you when you die, go look at some dead stuff."
    1. Re:What garbage by Darkness404 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Bush didn't appoint a ton of "czars" that were accountable to no one. Yes, the Bush administration had a lot of flaws, but Obama'a administration looks to be expanding on them.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    2. Re:What garbage by Freetardo+Jones · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Oh and just as a further note, Enron's fraud and corruption happened during the Clinton Administration. Their big pump-and-dump happened in the last year of Clinton being in office so lumping that failure on Bush is pretty unfair and disingenuous.

    3. Re:What garbage by Freetardo+Jones · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Yes, the Bush administration had a lot of flaws, but Obama'a administration looks to be expanding on them.

      Exactly. The funny thing is that now the Obama supporters are pulling the "But Bill Clinton did !!" that they were all complaining about the right doing it with regards to Bush's bullshit, but now they are doing the same thing with Bush to make excuses for Obama's bullshit.

    4. Re:What garbage by Freetardo+Jones · · Score: 3, Insightful

      inherited from the previous administration, nothing to do with obama...

      No, they are a direct result of his budgets. He's even admitted to so.

      entirely ordered and operated by the previous administration. condemned, ceased and genuine efforts made to find the best way to put it into the past with the least damage. original controversy nothing to do with obama...

      But he definitely made sure that no one could ever hold them responsible by giving them immunity and as such providing tacit approval.

      so let me get this straight... your entire criticism is based around blaming every single thing on bush, then saying:

      No, I blame them both since Obama has taken what Bush has done and expanded it and made the situation that much worse.

      which may or may not be a good idea, but is 100% entirely, confessed by you, obama's best efforts to clean up the mess that bush left america in...

      Sorry, but I've confessed no such thing. I disagreed with it under Bush and I disagree with it even more with Obama's huge expansion of the bailouts.

      i am waiting for the part where you show obama to be worse...

      I already did. The fact that you attempted to hand wave it all away doesn't change that fact.

    5. Re:What garbage by Freetardo+Jones · · Score: 3, Insightful

      so the clinton family are the oil family that were filthy with the corruption of that scandal and still to this day have not wiped that particular stink off and the bush family were totally clean, having little to nothing to do with oil investments, right?

      This is a great non sequitur. All of Enron's scams and corruptions happened years before Bush was even in office. Their big stock pump-and-dump happened in August of 2000 before he was even elected. This grasping at straws to blame anything and everything on Bush is both sad and laughable.

    6. Re:What garbage by Darkness404 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      millions needlessly dead,

      ...As opposed to people who would have died during Saddam's rule? Yes, the intelligence Bush got was faulty about the WMDs in Iraq, but you have to remember this is a dictator who not only invaded other countries but launched chemical warfare on his own people (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_poison_gas_attack ). The invasion of Afghanistan really should have happened sooner and with a more powerful attack. But after the 9/11 attacks, you couldn't exactly ignore a huge terrorist group that very successfully attacked the USA.

      war over large parts of the planet

      ...Because two countries consist of a "large part of the planet"? One of which was already at war (Afghanistan).

      mass alienation and destabilisation,

      Of who? And of what?

      worldwide economic collapse...

      Which we all know Bush is to blame for everything... Really, it started with Clinton and Clinton's desire to have every American own a home. Sure, its a noble idea but it went way to far. For example, a person who would ordinarily qualify for a $150,000 loan would be bumped up to getting a $1750,000 loan... So then eventually they couldn't pay it back because they borrowed more than they could afford. (see http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/hotproperty/archives/2008/02/clintons_drive.html for an article on what I'm talking about).

      Obama's plan seems to be lets spend our way out of an economic collapse! Mixed with tons of regulations. For example, I have a good friend who runs a home building business, he has been in business since 1982 and hasn't defaulted on a single loan and hasn't been late on any of his bills in the past 20 years. Today, he can't get a loan to build another house because Obama's administration says that he is "too big of a risk" WTF!?! This person has sold all of their houses, how exactly is he supposed to get any more money to build houses and sell them if he can't get a loan for it? It makes no sense at all.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    7. Re:What garbage by julesh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, the intelligence Bush got was faulty about the WMDs in Iraq

      There's practically incontrivertible documentary evidence that Bush knew WMDs would not be found and wanted to provoke the war on any grounds he could. (In case you want to talk about political bias and slanting in my sources there, The Guardian is a left-leaning paper, but The Times is a right-leaning paper owned by News Corporation, the same people who own Fox News.)

      Really, it started with Clinton and Clinton's desire to have every American own a home. Sure, its a noble idea but it went way to far. For example, a person who would ordinarily qualify for a $150,000 loan would be bumped up to getting a $1750,000 loan... So then eventually they couldn't pay it back because they borrowed more than they could afford.

      It's amazing how Clinton even managed to cause excessive lending and a property price crash in the UK, where he had no legislative power at all.

      Or perhaps these have nothing to do with governments and everything to do with banks who were too greedy and got their hands burned when the inevitable property price slide (which should have come as no surprise, as financial experts have been predicting it since about 2005) started to happen. Here's news for you: an extra 15% on top of people's loans makes little difference when prices fall by over 30%. Most people who bought close to the top were still in serious financial trouble because of it. And there was no obligation on the banks to take that funding -- if they believed the customer wouldn't be able to repay, they were obligated under various codes of practice (let alone plain and simple commercial sense) not to offer the loan.

      The banks thought they could make loans that they knew had a good chance of never being repaid, bundle them up into financial instruments and sell them for more than they were actually likely to get back. And for a while the scheme worked. But of course, in the end, it failed.

      Obama's plan seems to be lets spend our way out of an economic collapse!

      It's a good plan, to be honest. Government spending has a way of finding its way back to the government via taxes, so isn't as expensive to the economy as it at first appears. And it does get people spending money, which is the whole problem.

      Mixed with tons of regulations.

      Yes. The financial services industry has shown itself to be too irresponsible to be able to manage the significant chunk of the economy it currently does manage. Something needs to be done to tighten that up.

      For example, I have a good friend who runs a home building business, he has been in business since 1982 and hasn't defaulted on a single loan and hasn't been late on any of his bills in the past 20 years. Today, he can't get a loan to build another house because Obama's administration says that he is "too big of a risk" WTF!?!

      This has nothing to do with Obama or any regulations. This is just banks' typical overreaction to any property price crash. The same thing happened in the UK in the late 80s. Banks lose a whole string of money on property development projects that suddenly find themselves in negative equity, so decide not to invest in property development because the entire industry has a huge risk rating associated with it in any statistical analysis. Quite simple, really.

  4. I suppose I will start getting my news... by SUB7IME · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... 2.5 hours later ( http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/07/13/0531215/Traditional-News-Media-Lead-Blogs-By-25-Hours?from=rss )

  5. The Internet Says "No" by flydude18 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sorry.

  6. Re:I wish they'd focus on the news by Tom+Smith · · Score: 2, Insightful

    only on the condition that there is ZERO reportage of "celebrity" nonsense

    i would not pay a single penny if their inanity were infecting a news source i was paying for, it's bad enough seeing their crap all over the BBC news site (which i suppose i actually AM directly paying for already, but we don't have a choice but to pay for that).

  7. Re:People are mis-understanding this issue: by Zerth · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Which is hilarious, since most newspapers have been axing their writers left and right. Something like 3/4 of your major local rag is probably AP stories.

    Like the AP needs help sucking money out of newspapers.

  8. Re:I wish they'd focus on the news by samkass · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Many governments publish gigabytes of CSV files, PDF files, and database files. I assume that's what you're referring to when you say you just want facts published. Should the New York Times just be filled with tables of data?

    If you want that information translated into written English, the author of that text is going to have a point of view and a context within which they write. It's the way language works. And everyone wants other people to share their understanding of events.

    --
    E pluribus unum
  9. Re:I wish they'd focus on the news by FourthAge · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The BBC definitely are biased. The thing about bias is that you only tend to notice it when it jars with your own personal world view. That's when it really stands out, and you think "OMG WTF, how can you say that?"

    I often find this on the BBC, but then, I disapprove of their predominant ideology, and that of the government they serve (see my sig). I live in Britain.

    --
    The tao of democracy: the government you can vote for is not the real government.
  10. Re:People are mis-understanding this issue: by PPNSteve · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I have 'news' for you;
    News is NOT IP it is facts of something real or that has happened. No company or agency "owns' the news. (only their telling of said news is 'owned' by them, not the news itself.)

    You can't copyright facts.

    --
    PPN
  11. Very good point by zogger · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And yes, this is annoying to me as well. I think that if there is even one penny of public tax money that goes to the researchers who write these articles, that the entire paper be free to view in its entirety. Those academic paywalls are *most annoying*, especially when even the summaries/abstracts suck and don't tell much. I try to not even tease myself anymore and just use sites like PlOS, etc. Google should have a way to not show paywalls on request. You can do that with the negative modifiers with your search, -elsevier.com, like that, but it's a chore.

        On a side issue, I'd go further and say similar for patents, any public monies used, the patents become public domain.