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Something really scary is going on in Germany

martinweigert.com

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Re: Something really scary is going on in Germany

#141

Post by contingencies »

netcan wrote: post #102

I'm very disappointed with Europe. There is a trend of idiotic legislation drafted, & voted on by people who don't really understand the implications. They just don't understand the internet & technology enough and/or aren't smart enough. It' embarrassing. The other recent example was/is the brain-dead UK/EU cookie law. Is our privacy any more protected? No. All we got was some dumb generic "cookie policy" popups tha…

Re: 'Disappointed with Europe', please see recent FOIAs to the privacy body http://www.asktheeu.org/en/body/edps and subsequent to 'Home Affairs' (new EU body, ~immediately after introduction rubber-stamped US-friendly surveillance laws) at http://www.asktheeu.org/en/body/dg_home

EU had, and perhaps still has, the promise of a strong political body as a counter-balance to US and Chinese interests in the world. IMHO the promise is rapidly fading though, under what appears to be high-level influence and manipulation that demonstrably favours US-friendly outcomes. This is not a new phenomenon.

Tried to integrate results with Wikipedia, contacted the EFF, forwarded to journalists, nobody will write up the results. Trying reputable university-affiliated Wikinews journalists now. :/

Re: Something really scary is going on in Germany

#142

Post by Nikaido »

boboblong wrote: post #95

Here are a few points to consider: 1) The notion that the systematic clipping of one or two sentences from every news story you can find on the Internet for the purpose of selling ads is "fair use" is totally absurd. 2) The "robots.txt" argument misses the point because the publishers never gave permission to use their content, so the presence of an "opt-out" mechanism is irrelevant. The mechanism must be "opt-in", i…

> 2) The "robots.txt" argument misses the point because the publishers never gave permission to use their content, so the presence of an "opt-out" mechanism is irrelevant. The mechanism must be "opt-in", i.e., Google must ask to use their content.

The crux of the matter is that you're missing the newspapers motive. They don't want Google to ask their permission, they want google to pay them, which is a huge difference. They DON'T want google to ask for their permission and then delist them from Google News if they had to pay for it.

I am on Google's side on this matter, this sounds like extortion. Google should be free to delist them if they want money from their link, in a capitalist society you should be free to chose who you deal with in your business. I live in France, our government wants to tax google to help the newspapers and they didn't take google's answer (that they'd delist the newspapers) well, because they don't want google to respect their IP and ask for permission, they want Google to pay up no matter what.

Re: Something really scary is going on in Germany

#143

Post by boboblong »

dexen wrote: post #106
Shish2k wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> the publishers never gave permission to use their content > Yes they did, yes they did. The publisher explicitly granted access I'm failing to see how "read access" and "license to redistribute for profit" are the same thing

That's a strawman; the bots never indicated intention to read. They indicated (via `User-Agent' header) intention to index content and got HTTP 200 OK response to that . Nothing in the HTTP protocol specs (RFC 2616) even suggests it is only meant for direct human consumption. To the contrary, it states, user agent The client which initiates a request. These are often browsers, editors, spiders (web-traversing robots)…

"That's a strawman; the bots never indicated intention to read. They indicated (via `User-Agent' header) intention to index content and got HTTP 200 OK response to that."

The publishers aren't objecting to being indexed. They are objecting because snippets of their articles are being copied, placed on Google News, and used to sell ads without their permission, and they're not being compensated.

Re: Something really scary is going on in Germany

#144

Post by boboblong »

Nikaido wrote: post #142
boboblong wrote: post #95

Here are a few points to consider: 1) The notion that the systematic clipping of one or two sentences from every news story you can find on the Internet for the purpose of selling ads is "fair use" is totally absurd. 2) The "robots.txt" argument misses the point because the publishers never gave permission to use their content, so the presence of an "opt-out" mechanism is irrelevant. The mechanism must be "opt-in", i…

> 2) The "robots.txt" argument misses the point because the publishers never gave permission to use their content, so the presence of an "opt-out" mechanism is irrelevant. The mechanism must be "opt-in", i.e., Google must ask to use their content. The crux of the matter is that you're missing the newspapers motive. They don't want Google to ask their permission, they want google to pay them, which is a huge differenc…

>The crux of the matter is that you're missing the newspapers motive. They don't want Google to ask their permission, they want google to pay them, which is a huge difference. They DON'T want google to ask for their permission and then delist them from Google News if they had to pay for it.

I haven't missed their motive. Of course they don't want to be delisted from Google News. In a sense, they're like patent trolls, but with more of a moral high ground. Unlike patent trolls, they have produced something and sent it out into the world. It is not their job to preempt what they rightfully view as copyright infringement, even if that infringement might benefit them.

>Google should be free to delist them if they want money from their link

They are.

Re: Something really scary is going on in Germany

#145

Post by boboblong »

phlo wrote: post #97
boboblong wrote: post #95

Here are a few points to consider: 1) The notion that the systematic clipping of one or two sentences from every news story you can find on the Internet for the purpose of selling ads is "fair use" is totally absurd. 2) The "robots.txt" argument misses the point because the publishers never gave permission to use their content, so the presence of an "opt-out" mechanism is irrelevant. The mechanism must be "opt-in", i…

And here's why those points don't matter: 1) The debate is centered on Google News. As far as I know, News is one of the few services where Google haven't, don't and won't show ads. "Systematic clipping of one or two sentences [...] for the purpose of providing an ad-free overview and linking to the respective stories" sounds like "fair use" to me. 2) They are publishing their material on the web, for the world to se…

>The debate is centered on Google News. As far as I know, News is one of the few services where Google haven't, don't and won't show ads. "Systematic clipping of one or two sentences [...] for the purpose of providing an ad-free overview and linking to the respective stories" sounds like "fair use" to me.

Then Google should have no issue with not linking to publishers who don't want to be linked to. As an aside, I disagree that it's fair use, because it's done systematically as part of a commercial enterprise.

>They are publishing their material on the web, for the world to see. If you'd want an opt-in for every crawler out there, no search engine would ever be able to take off and index a significant portion of the web. By the way, an opting out from all (obedient) crawlers is as simple as "Disallow: /"

If you believe that Google is infringing the publishers' copyrights, then it is not the responsibility of the publishers to opt out. See my response to your first point.

Re: Something really scary is going on in Germany

#146

Post by boboblong »

chris_wot wrote: post #99
boboblong wrote: post #95

Here are a few points to consider: 1) The notion that the systematic clipping of one or two sentences from every news story you can find on the Internet for the purpose of selling ads is "fair use" is totally absurd. 2) The "robots.txt" argument misses the point because the publishers never gave permission to use their content, so the presence of an "opt-out" mechanism is irrelevant. The mechanism must be "opt-in", i…

The "robots.txt" argument misses the point because the publishers never gave permission to use their content What, they put it on a public directory with semi permanent URLs for no particular reason? That's a pretty flawed argument!

There's a difference between linking to something and using an except from a published work without permission. (Yes, it would be fair use in isolation, but not as part of an automated, systematic process that's part of a commercial enterprise.)

Re: Something really scary is going on in Germany

#147

Post by boboblong »

belorn wrote: post #107
boboblong wrote: post #95

Here are a few points to consider: 1) The notion that the systematic clipping of one or two sentences from every news story you can find on the Internet for the purpose of selling ads is "fair use" is totally absurd. 2) The "robots.txt" argument misses the point because the publishers never gave permission to use their content, so the presence of an "opt-out" mechanism is irrelevant. The mechanism must be "opt-in", i…

1) Normal search at google takes one sentence, title of the webpage and links them together. To support that service, they have ads. If news take two sentences, how is that totally absurd compared to one, and why is search totally acceptable but news search not? 2) as other has said, public sites are indexed in an opt-out system. Opt-in would not work, and would destroy any form of search system, indexing, yellow pag…

1) If someone wants Google to stop displaying a one-sentence excerpt from their page, Google should respect that.

2) I never said that indexing should be opt-in. I said that the use of excerpts should be opt-in.

3) I should think that someone can decline to allow their content to be used to generate ad revenue for someone else.

Re: Something really scary is going on in Germany

#148

Post by boboblong »

belorn wrote: post #104
conanite wrote: post #101

It would seem that Google could quickly kill this law by de-indexing all the relevant newspapers, right now. Why are they waiting?

No one likes to burn bridges, even if they get sued. They could do a "this is how google would look if you go through with this" day, but for now they look to be taking the more safe route with lawyers.

So, in other words, the posters defending Google are being totally disingenuous when they claim that Google couldn't care less about these petulant little publishers and that the publishers need Google far more than vice versa. Apparently, Google really doesn't want to take these publishers off Google News.

Re: Something really scary is going on in Germany

#149

Post by boboblong »

ripperdoc wrote: post #84

Why is this topic so complicated? A Google news snippet very rarely would suffice for a user, if they are interested they would click through, if they are not, they would not visiting the newspaper anyway. Google are not showing ads in Google News, although they might show them in search results. But still, no profit that newspaper could address is being taken by Google. In fact, Google is providing traffic. So takin…

But it's Google who's making a big deal out of this, not the publishers. They could have just delisted the publishers without a peep.

Re: Something really scary is going on in Germany

#150

Post by boboblong »

hso9791 wrote: post #112

The proper term for pushing this law is "rent-seeking". You must include our content, and you must pay us for it. This is a general problem with people and businesses perceiving themselves as working for society. They cannot see the wrongs they cause - because it's all for an even better cause. German newspapers can use robots.txt and obey the social contract of the web like the rest of us.

>You must include our content, and you must pay us for it.

Where are you getting the first part from?

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