Comments on: Google lashes out at German copyright ‘threat’

By: Byron M. G. Sanford, Esq.

Byron M. G. Sanford, Esq. — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 14:11:30 +0000

Reblogged this on Briskin, Cross & Sanford, LLC and commented: A classic case of the tension between rights holders and technology companies. On one hand the technology companies (in many cases) enable greater uptake of the content. On the other, rights holders often see technology companies monetizing their content without and direct benefit to the rights holder. (Pinterest and Google are two of the big battlegrounds in this fight.) There is merit on both sides of this fight, and it is clear that not only do copyright laws need to evolve to logically deal with this tension, but so do the business models on both sides. There is not a clear new paradigm that works for both sides yet, but if one doesn't arrive soon, there will be an awful lot of unnecessary casualties on both sides of this battle.

By: Tim Ward

Tim Ward — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 17:46:59 +0000

No, they’re *not* plagiarism, because plagiarism is taking something someone else has written and claiming it as your own. Whereas if you actually go to Google News what you’ll see is the name of the publisher written underneath the title of the article.

By: Guest

Guest — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 16:13:07 +0000

Yes let them do it or better exit Germany? Why are crying foul?

By: yang heffer

yang heffer — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 06:21:11 +0000

It is important to step back and think about the global market evolution. Motors are key to the Internet, we all use them and need them, no doubt about this, the question is how all actors can live and develop in this new environment, together, and for the public’s benefit? The whole ecosystem needs content producers, and quality contents. There has been an obvious shift of value between content producers and motors, if we want a solid, rich of content, and open Internet, we need to think about value sharing, as in any emerging model. This is more to ensure durability of the ecosystem than anything else, sort of an ecologic approach of the Internet. Motors get benefit from linking permanently refreshed quality contents: news, but cost of producing news is high and badly remunerated, why the cost of operating for a motor wouldn’t be what is proposed here by German government? Any industry has a cost of operating its business! To be fair, on the other hand, we should ask to remove publishers’ ability to refuse to be listed by motors, for the public’s benefit! This is a modern approach, this is a way to ensure ALL information is available, and this is a way to ensure a fair value share on the Internet in the value chain. Too easy and short to say motors should delist them and – so what for the user? No more news with its pluralism, the only access to news would be through strong media brands, no chance for interesting news from smaller publishers to be read and emphasized? There is a need to pay for the cost of information, to send a journalist in Syria to investigate…But it creates value, as sold content, through advertising, and through the massive contacts it generates, for the benefit of publishers, and motors as well. Music producers get paid for the right of broadcasting music on radio, and, on the other end, they cannot refuse for their music to be broadcasted, why? Because radios sell advertising on the back of those broadcasts. Motors could pay such a neighboring right, without affecting its business model, or so marginally, why? Because they sell advertising on the back of the millions links they make with news, permanently refreshed and paid by publishers. There is no bad publisher or bad motor here, there is a whole ecosystem to rethink, at the publics benefit, the first responsibility of the government is to ensure the public can access to all news, and to ensure pluralism and professionalism. Short term approach would impoverish the Internet at the public’s disadvantage. We must thing big, think durability and fairness in business practices, in order to keep and develop a rich, full of content and open Internet. Not surprised Germans have got this durable approach of the Internet, they can be proud of their approach, it can open a step 2 in the Internet business model, for the benefit of the audience, as content will improve and increase in quality, durably. At the end, public, through better quality content should benefit from both motors and publishers businesses, as public makes it all!

By: Christian Kunz

Christian Kunz — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 10:14:43 +0000

The problem is that here in Germany many people still haven’t understood how the internet works and how they can use it for their own benefit. This discussion remembers me of the record industry where similar things are going on. By adhering to old business models the protagonists jeopardize Germany’s reputation as technology market and their own companies. And many of the politicians who aren’t a-jour with current techniques support them doing so. Very sad – I hope the sensible people will prevail.

By: Paul Pehrson

Paul Pehrson — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 23:39:15 +0000

Easy solution: Google just turns off all Google-related services in Germany, including Gmail, YouTube, Google Search, etc. Let’s see how long the German public puts up with that before the law is changed back.

By: ricdesan

ricdesan — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 21:15:27 +0000

DingDingDing. Lets just see how well the publishers online advertising efforts pan out when Google turns off the firehose!

By: indolent

indolent — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 18:06:26 +0000

Assuming we’re talking US law, look up the term “fair use” and get back to us on that.

By: Ted L

Ted L — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 15:10:06 +0000

Delisting organic results makes no money for Google Tim. It only hurts the quality of the search engine, and the publishers get less traffic. If anybody is getting a free lunch here, its the publishers getting free referral traffic.

By: Graeme Caldwell

Graeme Caldwell — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 11:14:02 +0000

I don’t think you understand the difference between plagiarism, theft, and copyright infringement.

Do you think traffic to news websites has increased or decreased since Google came along? Discoverability is a significant problem for online content, and search engines are the solution to that problem. Google News is an aggregator, but it helps people to discover content on websites other than those they are already familiar with, thus driving traffic to them. Preventing Google from doing so is an anti-competitive move from the big publishers who already have some mindshare in a particular domain.

Also, you have to make a distinction between a service like Google News, which displays headlines and snippets while directing people to the full content on other sites, and services like pulse.me that scrapes those sites and displays content within their own page. You might have a point with the latter sort of service, but not the former.

Killing services like Google News and limiting the effectiveness of search would mean that content is put in silos sealed off from the rest of the net. It would kill the interconnected nature of the internet, stifle innovation and competition, and be good for only those who are already dominant in the industry.

I’m a freelance writer, and I rely on being paid for the content I create for my living, an have little patience for people that infringe my copyright, but I’m savvy enough to realize that Google are actually a huge boon to most content creators.