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Over 200 newspapers now involved in lawsuits vs. Google, Facebook

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Re: Over 200 newspapers now involved in lawsuits vs. Google, Facebook

#151

Post by [deleted] »

reaperducer wrote: post #89
gerash wrote: post #47

The most important factor is that on the internet local news media lose their geographical monopoly. So everyone can subscribe to NYT or WSJ no matter where they live. This effectively creates a winner takes all situation like in many other industries which get closer to a free market. Add to that the fact that classified ads have been taken over by likes of ebay, LinkedIn, craigslist, etc. Basically the business mod…

The most important factor is that on the internet local news media lose their geographical monopoly. The other side of that coin, however, is that everybody knows the national news, but the vast majority of people know nothing about what's happening in their own backyard. I'd estimate that at least 80% of Americans don't even know what days their city council meets.

[deleted]

Re: Over 200 newspapers now involved in lawsuits vs. Google, Facebook

#152

Post by hellbannedguy »

ribosometronome wrote: post #126
anonAndOn wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> young No. Middle-career and beyond because you probably can't afford tickets to the Met gala if you're <35.

Those are $35,000. I suspect they hope to have a broader audience than folk who regularly drop 35k on a single night's event.

I had no idea it was that expensive. I will never understand the way certain people spend money. I could buy a toolbox filled with Snap-on tools for one night of cringing.

There is a politician who's ruining the democratic party that was at that event.

Re: Over 200 newspapers now involved in lawsuits vs. Google, Facebook

#153

Post by pkaler »

alex_young wrote: post #88
gerash wrote: post #47

The most important factor is that on the internet local news media lose their geographical monopoly. So everyone can subscribe to NYT or WSJ no matter where they live. This effectively creates a winner takes all situation like in many other industries which get closer to a free market. Add to that the fact that classified ads have been taken over by likes of ebay, LinkedIn, craigslist, etc. Basically the business mod…

> ...local news media lose their geographical monopoly I realize what you're saying, but really, local news will always have a geographical monopoly. Can the NYTimes or WSJ even think about covering local issues? How will investigative reporting function for say a local office holder or a local environmental problem? To my knowledge the real problem is that the traditional business model supporting reporting has drie…

> Can the NYTimes or WSJ even think about covering local issues?

Yes.

The NYTimes has a Canadian desk. Eventually they'll have a Vancouver desk. Eventually they'll have an East Van desk. Eventually they'll have a Main St desk.

Re: Over 200 newspapers now involved in lawsuits vs. Google, Facebook

#154

Post by catlikesshrimp »

Gunax wrote: post #36
hash872 wrote: post #19

I'd imagine these lawsuits' chance of success will very strongly hinge on where they are impaneled. A jury in a conservative, working class or populist area will probably be pretty sympathetic to striking back at Big Tech, regardless of how weak the merits of the case are. An appeals court may later throw the verdict out. To my understanding, the US is the only developed democracy to still use juries for civil matter…

So basically you're saying that the lawsuit will be decided by sentiment, and not legal precedent? I think that's a concern, but I also have more trust in juries than they are given. As an example, many meritless lawsuits against gun manufacturers have been won by the manufacturers. This also strikes me as a legal stretch--regardless of how good for society local newspapers were, it feels like horse breeders suing ca…

Accountable news outlets are much more important for democracy than cars.

Eager reporters are a stone in the shoe for any government. That is why they are murdered (outside of the US).

You should do whatever it takes to allow newspapers to procure and publish relevant news. The alternative is twitter, youtube, facebook, and that socialmedia Trump wants to launch. The world is heading to a very dark place.

Re: Over 200 newspapers now involved in lawsuits vs. Google, Facebook

#155

Post by PeterisP »

freediver wrote: post #85
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet that thing is not a publicly traded multi-billion dollar media corporation.

Hm I think we have a misunderstanding. Who said that a news company has to be publicly traded multi-billion dollar media corporation? My local newspaper is a news company. It can not effectively be replaced by someone on substack, let alone a news company with aspirations of more than local news coverage. Substack is OK for opinion, not news. That was my whole argument.

Why exactly can't your local news company be replaced by "someone on substack"? If the individual reporters who currently work for that company would quit and host the same reporting on substack (either as a team or individually), what would be the major difference to the user?

Re: Over 200 newspapers now involved in lawsuits vs. Google, Facebook

#156

Post by PeterisP »

colinmhayes wrote: post #97
_aavaa_ wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If their content is so interchangeable, why should they all stay in business?

Someone has to actually write the content before everyone else copies it.

Copyright is a thing. When many newspapers and news sites have the exact same content, they're generally licensing it from a large news agency which actually wrote the story, it's not someone just illegally ripping off their paywalled content.

On the other hand, if multiple sites can each write equivalent content, then there's nothing wrong with competition eliminating whomever is weakest - the more expensive (not free), the less viral (harder to share), etc.

Re: Over 200 newspapers now involved in lawsuits vs. Google, Facebook

#157

Post by PeterisP »

joegahona wrote: post #45
wodenokoto wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this even allowed by google? It’s a bait and switch similar to serving visitors and search engines different content.

How is it a bait and switch? If the content is relevant, it's relevant. If you clicked through to something that said it was about NBA basketball and it was instead about knitting, _that_ would be a bait and switch.

I'm searching for publicly available content published on the internet. You're telling Google that there is certain public content available at this URL - that's the "bait" part. Afterwards you're telling me that no, this content is not actually available to the public - that's the "switch" part.

I mean, there's nothing wrong with paywalls, but you have to be honest and explicit about what you're offering. If the page says "Latest NBA game - pay $1 to find out who won", that's fine, but then that's what you should provide to my search engine; and if you want my search engine to index "It was close but no cigar for the Nets as they fell 111-107 to the Chicago Bulls this past Saturday." , then this should the actual content that I get when I go to that page.

Re: Over 200 newspapers now involved in lawsuits vs. Google, Facebook

#158

Post by athenot »

reaperducer wrote: post #87
athenot wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I receive the NYT on my doorstep on weekends and my copies say "Printed in Georgia". The content does not vary, though.

It does vary, depending on your region. My observation is that not all regions get extra content. NYT papers in New Jersey used to have different content. I'm not sure if that's still the case. West coast editions printed in Los Angeles used to have an entire extra section. The last time I checked, that section is no longer there, but there are other subtle changes. Like the weather forecast in the upper right corner…

Ah yes the weather is specific to the South East. But I don't recall seeing ads for local businesses nor articles about local affairs.

Re: Over 200 newspapers now involved in lawsuits vs. Google, Facebook

#159

Post by shaftway »

claudiulodro wrote: post #29
13415 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potentially stupid questions: Aren't there efficient techniques to prevent web scraping? And if Google really scrapes web content from them without their permission, wouldn't that be commercial copyright infringement which falls under criminal law? That's the thing I don't understand about the current situation.

> Aren't there efficient techniques to prevent web scraping? Not especially, since internet browsers make GET requests the same as scrapers. There are techniques around blocking user agents, rate limiting, etc. but that's an arms race against the scrapers. The tricky part about blocking Google is that if you do, your site won't show up in Google search results. :)

Google in particular always uses an identifiable agent. So you could serve one set of content to Google and a separate set to actual visitors, preventing Google from scraping the content.

They clearly want the benefit of being scraped (the traffic) without the cost (the loss of traffic from people who don't click past the headline to the article).

Re: Over 200 newspapers now involved in lawsuits vs. Google, Facebook

#160

Post by PeterisP »

freediver wrote: post #34
deadalus wrote: post #28

I HATE clicking on a Google link and discovering that it's paywalled. It's a massive waste of time.

How is Google supposed to know if you have access or not? (because if you have, and it doesn't show you the relevant result, it is doing a disservice to you)

Google is indexing public pages as "someone" who does not have any specific access. Google has chosen not to know or care whether I have special access, and index the content as if it's not there - perhaps it's a disservice, but that's the service they're offering to their users. And the actual news sites do not and should not have any say in this, the decision of what to index and what to show to users should remain between each search engine and their users.

So if a search engine chooses to index the "content-as-if-you're-anonymous-and-not-logged-in" and if you try to trick this service into showing something else than what's actually published to everyone (serving visitors and search engines different content), then it's quite reasonable for google to treat it as a cheating attempt (because, really, it is one) and choose to penalize it in their search policies - because that's what I as a search engine user would want.

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