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Google and Facebook 'Must Pay For News' From Which They Make Billions (yahoo.com)

Posted by msmash on from the tussle-continues dept.

Internet giants such as Google and Facebook must pay copyright charges for using news content on their platforms, nine European press agencies said. These giant platforms, news agencies said, make vast profits from news content on their platforms. The call comes at a time when the EU is debating a directive to make Facebook, Google, Twitter and other major players pay for the millions of news articles they use or link to. From a report: "Facebook has become the biggest media in the world," the agencies said in a plea published in the French daily Le Monde. "Yet neither Facebook nor Google have a newsroom... They do not have journalists in Syria risking their lives, nor a bureau in Zimbabwe investigating Mugabe's departure, nor editors to check and verify information sent in by reporters on the ground." The agencies argued, "access to free information is supposedly one of the great victories of the internet. But it is a myth."

12 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. Simple solution for Google & Facebook by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Stop linking to any news from the group(s) that don't want them "making billions" by linking news articles.

    Wonder how long those news agencies will take to change their minds?

    --

    "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    1. Re:Simple solution for Google & Facebook by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 5, Informative

      Do news organizations really not want Google to link to them?

      Of course they want Google to link to them! They also want Google to give them billions and billions of dollars, because, you know, those links are utterly priceless!

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    2. Re:Simple solution for Google & Facebook by lazarus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Right. But isn't this was robots.txt is for? Perhaps we need to update the RFC to indicate that the page(s) are okay for search results, but not okay for aggregators? Seems like a simple fix that doesn't involve lawyers.

      --
      I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
    3. Re: Simple solution for Google & Facebook by bigpat · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I appreciate good journalism. I also understand that 99% of what is out there isn't.

    4. Re:Simple solution for Google & Facebook by Mr.+Shotgun · · Score: 4, Informative

      Right. But isn't this was robots.txt is for? Perhaps we need to update the RFC to indicate that the page(s) are okay for search results, but not okay for aggregators? Seems like a simple fix that doesn't involve lawyers.

      Actually there is no need for that, google allows multiple ways to block or limit the search results these news organizations can display already. Google has their different crawlers listed on their support pages and also provides examples of how to block specific crawlers from indexing their sites or limit what is displayed. In addition they also support blocking via meta tags and even http headers. So if the news organizations wanted to show up in search results but not in google news they could easily set the following on the web server:

      X-Robots-Tag: Googlebot-News: noindex

      And just like that the news stories would not be indexed at all, or if they did not want snippets but just a normal link they could replace noindex with nosnippet and they would have blocked news snippets being shown site wide. With the solution to their woes being so simple I am not sure why they have not done it yet.

      --
      Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the (supposed) good of its victims may be the most oppressive
  2. So then leave 'em high and dry by halivar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Let those new outlets get their own clicks the hard way, instead of having FB and Google funnel people straight to them. Spoiler alert: I won't see their articles anymore.

    1. Re:So then leave 'em high and dry by dj245 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Let those new outlets get their own clicks the hard way, instead of having FB and Google funnel people straight to them. Spoiler alert: I won't see their articles anymore.

      Is it good for healthy societies to have one or two giant for-profit companies controlling most of the news people see? There are three forseeable outcomes-
      1. The aggregator manipulates which stories are shown based on payments by the news organizations, or by 3rd parties
      2. The aggregator tries to show the user exactly what they want to see, and hides articles they do not want to see
      3. Combination of the above

      --
      Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
  3. Double edged sword if there ever was one by DallasMay269 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is a problem on all sides. On one hand, Yes, the producers need the funding to keep producing high quality -and very expensive- reporting. If Google and Facebook simply stop linking to actual news then the revenue those orgs depend on will dramatically decrease. Further, then the only "news" most people will see will be cheap opinion pieces. News orgs have long loved opinion editorials because they are really, really cheap to produce -and are really quite popular. If this goes through, then you will see investigative reporting drop even further.

  4. They did this in 2015 by vandon · · Score: 5, Informative

    https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

      Belgium was the first country to try it, and Google responded by removing complaining publications from Google News. In response, the publications then complained that Google News was being mean to them, even though they were the ones complaining. In Germany, a similar thing happened, whereby Google left the complaining publications in Google News, but without snippets since that was a key aspect of the law. Again, the publishers screamed "unfair" even though they were the ones who had pushed for the law in the first place.

    1. Re:They did this in 2015 by Howitzer86 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The obvious answer is to shamelessly ask that the government require Google to link to these publications, while also requiring that Google pay for the pleasure of being forced to do so.

  5. Better not rock that boat too much... by OpenSourced · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yet neither Facebook nor Google have a newsroom

    Don't start giving them ideas...

    On the other side, If they built a newsroom, no idea how much would that cost, but anyway if they did, and then they linked preferentially to that news source, the same outlets to complain now for being linked, would be crying illegal monopoly at the top of their lungs, and demanding to be linked on equal standing.

    I guess that the main lesson here is that seismic technological transitions always have somebody with the foot in the wrong place.

    --
    Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
  6. Haven't we been here before? by deadwill69 · · Score: 4

    I mean, didn't they try this years ago and google stopped listing them. Their traffice went down and they begged to get re-listed?

    Oh here one for starters:
    http://www.france24.com/en/201...