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Google Warns News Sites May Lose 45 Percent of Traffic If EU Passes Its Copyright Reform (thenextweb.com)
Google's SVP of Global Affairs, Kent Walker, laid out Google's opposition to the EU's highly contested copyright reform rules. "Google warns Article 11 and Article 13 could have catastrophic effects on the creative economy in Europe by hampering user uploads and news sharing," reports The Next Web. From the report: Article 11 in its current form will limit news aggregators' abilities to show snippets of articles. According to Google's own experiments, the impact of it only showing URLs, very short fragments of headlines, and no preview images would be a "substantial traffic loss to news publishers." "Even a moderate version of the experiment (where we showed the publication title, URL, and video thumbnails) led to a 45 percent reduction in traffic to news publishers," Walker explained. "Our experiment demonstrated that many users turned instead to non-news sites, social media platforms, and online video sites -- another unintended consequence of legislation that aims to support high-quality journalism." "Article 11, called the 'link tax' by opponents, requires anyone who copies a snippet of text from a publisher's articles to have a license to do so," reports ZDNet. "Article 13 demands that online platforms filter and block uploads of copyright-infringing material." The European Parliament approved Article 11 and Section 13 in September. The finalized version may be passed in March or April of this year.
The "link tax" is bad for Google and other news aggregators, bad for consumers, and likely bad for news sites as well. It is an erosion of the public's right to fair use of information.
In other news, Eastern European drug lords warn that drug dealers may loose 45 percent of revenue if EU passes anti-drug legislation. This could have could have catastrophic effects on the drug economy in Europe by hampering user access to cocaine and heroin.
Wording straight from Google, just applied to a slightly different product.
Yep, Google didn't blink with Spain, I don't think it'll blink with the EU as a whole either. The EU clearly isn't bothered if a few websites overseas - even if they do include some fairly major US newspapers - decide of their own volition to block EU access because of the GDPR, but they'll absolutely be bothered if it's their own media that's getting cut off at the knees. Google know full well how badly the news sites need them to drive traffic in their direction via search, so I fully expec them to just pull the plug as they did with Spain, wait for the publishers to start screaming and shouting about the lost traffic/revenue, and only then open negotiations on exemptions and workarounds. At that point they'll be doing so from a much stronger position and with an industry that's desperate for a quick solution, so a deal more favourable to Google is much more likely.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Google know full well how badly the news sites need them to drive traffic in their direction via search, so I fully expec them to just pull the plug as they did with Spain, wait for the publishers to start screaming and shouting about the lost traffic/revenue, and only then open negotiations on exemptions and workarounds. At that point they'll be doing so from a much stronger position and with an industry that's desperate for a quick solution, so a deal more favourable to Google is much more likely.
This seems an unwise strategy.
For comparison, it took the EU four years to do anything about the VAT mess on digital services. During that time some smaller businesses went under or stopped supplying the EU. That was a problem that was only recognised at a very late stage in the original legislative process, because by the admission of various senior officials involved, the EU basically didn't even realise that millions of very small businesses existed, so had made no effort to inform or consult with them earlier, when helpful changes might still have been possible. By the time the danger was starting to be understood, it was too late to stop the process or add extra safeguards. And being EU-based rules, the national governments who also recognised the danger too late couldn't then act at national level to mitigate the damage.
In this case, the potential damage has been clear from the start, and campaigners have been objecting to articles 11 and 13 throughout. If the EU passes them anyway, that's essentially game over. Adversely affected online businesses are going to be hurt, and there won't be much that either they or the sites that previously cited them can do about it.
This foolishness has to be stopped before it gets onto the EU statute books.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The problem here is that, just like it happened in Spain, the EU fully expects that Google will be the one "adversely affected", paying to the news cartels so they can get that juicy free money.
But, again like Spain, those cartels will be the ones actually "adversely affected", when Google will just cuts the cord and leaves them bumbmling "bu..but, where is our money now?"
Any other victims in the crossfire are just collateral damages and they never cared at all about them.
Definitely the preferred option. I've been following Julia Reda's site for updates on this and writing to my MEP at key points like votes, etc., but it looks like the EU has finally decided that Brexit isn't worth any more of their time and is looking to its own business, including trying to get at least some bits of EU legislation through in the current session, this included. That they're trying again with Articles 11 and 13, despite heavy opposition to those specific clauses on previous attempts, indicates that this is probably one of those they really want to pass for some reason (e.g. someone has already been paid), so we can probably expect *something* to get through somehow.
Here's the thing though; the EU isn't listening here, and the implications of this for the average citizen are going to be even more visible than all those cookie consent popups. Having a good chunk of the web go dark because the EU wasn't prepared to listen (regardless of how the EU media spins the coverage so it's not the media's fault) might just make more people aware of the growing disconnect between the MEPs in the EU parliament and the voters and businesses that they're meant to be representing. That disconnect has already got them the train wreck of Brexit, several other EU countries in varying levels of turmoil, and a general rise in extremism and nationalism right across the union. They *need* a wake up call, and if a few media conglomerates have to go to the wall that might actually be a smaller price to pay than a few more xxExits, or a collective swing to the far right (by EU standards) rather than the current level of diversity.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
The thing is, this is an *EU* law and most of these jurisdictions have local laws that more or less grant authorization of some limited form of copies.
The "link tax" is bad for Google
Yes, for *google* because it might prevent them from slurping the *whole web* and republishing it.
(Though even then, some countries are extremely lax. Switzerland, though not exactly EU member, but merely partner state signing bilateral agreement, has the "technical ground" exemption. And Google could argue that indexing the web must include making local copies of everything on technical grounds).
and other news aggregators,
You'll have to check every country for the local details, but nearly all country would allow keeping and citing a small excerpt on the grounds of citation.
The only difference being what local laws consider a reasonable short excerpt. Germany has much stricter and precise definition, but republishing only the abstract/first paragraph is definitely within limits.
Any news aggregator physically based in EU would have no problems.
bad for consumers, and likely bad for news sites as well. It is an erosion of the public's right to fair use of information.
...except in countries where there are strong rules in place already to protect the fair use of information.
(which is the case of most european jurisdiction already).
So, although I tend to be against copyright laws, and would certainly have voted against this law if I had the opportunity (haha... direct democracy in EU. One can dream...), I have to admit that the complaints of Google are pretty much groundless on this one.
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