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France rules Google must pay news firms for content

reuters.com

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Re: France rules Google must pay news firms for content

#131

Post by zepto »

akiselev wrote: post #121
satyrnein wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can someone negotiate a rate without the ability to walk away?

They do have the ability to walk away - just like users have the ability to walk away from Google. They can cease operations in France and remove themselves from France's jurisdiction (probably the whole EU, including their wonderful little tax haven). They did it to China once, if I remember correctly, after a series of state sponsored Gmail breaches. Don't want to pay? Don't participate. I'm enjoying the schadenfre…

Can they instead simply start their own news gathering operation?

Re: France rules Google must pay news firms for content

#132

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

franczesko wrote: post #118

Google needs to finally stop being a parasite - both on the economy and other people's work. The content is not theirs. Pay up and support the ecosystem, if you want to use it.

How exactly is Google the parasite here? They are only providing links to content since the publishers didn't want them to provide snippets or previews. So literally the only thing that Google is providing is a link to the content on the publisher's site.

Re: France rules Google must pay news firms for content

#133

Post by zepto »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #8
Sujan wrote: post #2

I wish Google would finally go with the kneejerk reaction of just unlisting all these sites from Google Search and News.

Essentially France has said Google, being a monopoly, is not allowed to refuse to provide this service. They must do it, they must pay for it.

I don’t see that anywhere. It seems that they are free to completely stop showing news sites.

Re: France rules Google must pay news firms for content

#134

Post by zajio1am »

Reventlov wrote: post #74
PunksATawnyFill wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These claims seem irrelevant, inaccurate, or dumb. Google News only shows brief abstracts from each article, and drives traffic to the publications' own sites. It's free advertising! How is this at all BAD for the publications?

It's not bad, but they are not paying for this content, even if they have an incentive to display these abstracts (people using their tools). The law regarding the « droits voisins » (related rights) says it's a right to get a fair price for people using your content, and that's why Google has to pay if they want to display the content. As google is in a monopoly position, they can not refuse to display them (without…

> It's not bad, but they are not paying for this content, even if they have an incentive to display these abstracts

And press has an incentive to pay for being propagated in search results. As both sides gain in this exchange even without monetary transaction, there is no obvious way to see who should pay whom and zero price (in both sides) is a reasonable position.

It is true that Google being in a monopoly position makes it hard to establish price for 'being announced in search results'.

Re: France rules Google must pay news firms for content

#135

Post by CamperBob2 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #113
imgabe wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The newspapers are providing their data for free to anyone who visits their website, assuming it's not behind a paywall. Google isn't forcing them to do that. If they want people to have to pay for it, make that a requirement of visiting the site.

Many do. However, then Google punishes their search rankings for having a paywall. Forcing them to offer their data for free if they want to show up in search.

So, they should start their own news search engine. Problem solved.

Re: France rules Google must pay news firms for content

#136

Post by CamperBob2 »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #34
trekrich wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should, and when they come back asking for it all to be undone they should say no. Let them swim for a little bit so france does not try this again. This was tried in spain, and quickly reversed.

So what you're saying is Google should have more power and authority than actual nations.

More power than France? Yeah. For one thing, Google is not a French company, so there's no reasonable justification for France to exert any control over them.

For another, it seems clear that one of the key lessons of the 21st century is that democracy isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's essentially government by the majority of a population that's almost evenly distributed on the IQ bell curve. In a stark contrast to the membership of the National Assembly, those on the left side of the intelligence distribution can be brought to consensus far more easily than those on the right.

With their history, France should understand that better than most other countries. The input of their government, democratic or otherwise, should not be a factor in Google's decisionmaking process.

Re: France rules Google must pay news firms for content

#137

Post by Talanes »

renewiltord wrote: post #61
matheusmoreira wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want Google to be able to say "I don't want to list papers that won't do this for free" That's up to the french people to decide. Google negotiating with nations as if it was a trade agreement between equals would mean we're living in a cyberpunk dystopia.

That's the dream. When governments cannot simply impose their will on me at a whim. The fault isn't that Google can negotiate as an equal. The fault is that I can't negotiate as an equal when I want to marry a man or abort a foetus or drug myself. And I'd rather erode the power of the government than of myself every single time. And I'm pretty sure the French people don't get to decide what I want. Only I get to deci…

>And I'm pretty sure the French people don't get to decide what I want. Only I get to decide that.

Great. You don't get to decide what the French people want either.

Re: France rules Google must pay news firms for content

#138

Post by cabalamat »

Reventlov wrote: post #74
PunksATawnyFill wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These claims seem irrelevant, inaccurate, or dumb. Google News only shows brief abstracts from each article, and drives traffic to the publications' own sites. It's free advertising! How is this at all BAD for the publications?

It's not bad, but they are not paying for this content, even if they have an incentive to display these abstracts (people using their tools). The law regarding the « droits voisins » (related rights) says it's a right to get a fair price for people using your content, and that's why Google has to pay if they want to display the content. As google is in a monopoly position, they can not refuse to display them (without…

> it's a right to get a fair price for people using your content, and that's why Google has to pay if they want to display the content

But the French government wants Google to pay regardless of whether Google wants to display the content or not. Which is clearly offensive to natural justice, even if you don't like Google.

Re: France rules Google must pay news firms for content

#139

Post by imgabe »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #113
imgabe wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The newspapers are providing their data for free to anyone who visits their website, assuming it's not behind a paywall. Google isn't forcing them to do that. If they want people to have to pay for it, make that a requirement of visiting the site.

Many do. However, then Google punishes their search rankings for having a paywall. Forcing them to offer their data for free if they want to show up in search.

Then they should not be dependent on search traffic.

The fact is, despite some politicians declaring it a fundamental right, the news does not provide enough value to most people for them to pay for it.

There is an absolute glut of content out there, way way more than anybody wants or needs. Much of it is less than worthless, it's actually of negative value because it's designed to hijack your attention. Remove the infusion of ad money that is producing this, let it settle to the things that people are actually willing to pay for, and we'll all be better off.

Re: France rules Google must pay news firms for content

#140

Post by michaelmrose »

_8j50 wrote: post #26
Sujan wrote: post #2

I wish Google would finally go with the kneejerk reaction of just unlisting all these sites from Google Search and News.

Why? Google derives value from news site's content. Advertisers pay google for clicks,if google treated news sites the same as any other site there would be no problem but google is adding additional value to their own product at the expense of news sites without additonal compensation. You seem to think it is a priviledge to be listed on google, I disagree, it is a priviledge for google to be allowed to conduct busi…

They aren't owed any compensation for driving business to the sites.

The basis of commerse is the ability to contract with another party to act in such a way as to create mutual benefit. The fact that someone derives benefit from your actions does not create an obligation unless you have the ability to do otherwise.

This is an attempt to create in law an obligation for a private company to provide a benefit to another private entity for nonsensical justification.

If a few students can create Google a few Frenchmen can create a competitor. They just cannot necessarily convince most to use it.

Such a corporation probably wouldn't pay French news sites either nor would there be any incentive to charge them for it without a pile of other nations money on the line.

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