Google v Newspapers: BATTLE ROYALE!

Started by Mr Cat Dog November 11th, 2012 6:32 AM
  • 819 views
  • 4 replies

Mr Cat Dog

Frasier says it best

Age 32
Male
London, UK
Seen September 29th, 2017
Posted July 12th, 2017
11,344 posts
19.1 Years
In Germany politicians are considering a bill to extend copyright protection to excerpts of newspaper articles appearing in search engines’ results, thus enabling publishers to collect payment for them. Google is the main target: some German newspaper executives say it benefits from showcasing their material in search results on its news aggregator, Google News. A similar bill has been proposed in Italy. French newspapers want the same. On October 29th President François Hollande warned Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Google, that if French newspapers’ demands for compensation are not met by year-end, France may pass a law akin to the German one. Austrian and Swiss publishers are thinking along similar lines.

Giving away the headline and first sentence of an article supposedly dissuades readers from clicking through to the newspaper’s website to read the entire story. Critics also say that lifting even snippets of articles means Google can sell advertisements alongside them on its search platform (though Google News carries no ads).

But the benefit goes the other way, too. Google says it directs 4 billion clicks to news websites every month; perhaps as much as three-quarters of Google News users go on to read the full article. And newspapers can add a tag to their pages so that they do not appear in Google News.
Full article here

I thought about putting this in GE, but then thought it'd be a better fit here, given the whole 'Google'-component to it. What do you guys think of these proposed measures?

Esper

California
Seen June 30th, 2018
Posted June 30th, 2018
My gut reaction is that the newspaper folks are overreacting. I am one of those people who goes to the source of an article to read it though. I guess I only care who wins out if it affects whether I've got to pay money to access things I didn't have to pay for before.

Frostweaver

Ancient + Prehistoric

Age 34
Male
Canada
Seen September 11th, 2016
Posted July 30th, 2016
8,246 posts
19.7 Years
Or some industries just have to admit it: your business models have changed rather you like it or not.

In this case: people still rely on authentic source as mentioned, or people will like more than one newspaper source for a better grasp at the full picture. Making your newspaper articles easily accessible is really a win-win for everyone. When it was hard to find/paper version of newspaper, you probably stick with one and that's it. Nowadays, a news reader may pick up articles from multiple sources. So I certainly believe in Google's statement that Google's involvement actually helps their business expands. Instead of all the papers fighting for that one reader who may read only from one source, the easy access may allow the one reader to read a bit from everyone.

Archaic, random laws just prolong the pain and make things worse for everyone =/

Shiny Celebi

Seen August 25th, 2015
Posted October 17th, 2013
2,377 posts
12 Years
Most people look things up over Google nowadays though a lot of people will still read newspapers. It sounds like as less people may read newspapers and turn to the internet for news, they are losing business and are trying to use this to keep making money as more people turn to the internet for news at their fingertips. Using the internet, you can get a news article from many different points of view and look up numerous sources. I guess Newspapers are afraid Google will put them out of business because a story can be put online at any time and easily searched without a need to buy anything. I hope that dosent pass as I'd like to be able to access info from Google without having to pay to read a news article.

Hannah

beep bop boop

Age 22
Female
Seen November 16th, 2021
Posted October 9th, 2017
1,150 posts
10.6 Years
Let's face it. The Internet always wins. The publishers should just accept that. Google states:

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
The world's information includes newspaper articles from all around the globe. It's not illegal, is it? They're do give credit to the publishers, so what's wrong with that?

beep bop boop