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Canada demands Meta lift news ban to allow wildfire info sharing

reuters.com

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Re: Canada demands Meta lift news ban to allow wildfire info sharing

#81

Post by Mystery-Machine »

kennywinker wrote: post #20
davikr wrote: post #7

Good, this is a consequence of pure rent-seeking lobbying from big newspapers. > There have been 52 registered meetings with Ministers, MPs, and senior officials or roughly one meeting every four days since election day nearly 8 months ago. This represents an astonishing level of access and may help explain why the concerns of independent media and the broader public are missing from the bill. [1] [1]: https://www.mi…

Facebook wants to make money off selling ads next to other people’s content. News media wants to get paid for the content they pay to create. Who’s rent seeking again?

Disclaimer: I hate Facebook. I despise them.

In this instance, if I understand correctly, Facebook is supposed to pay news companies whenever someone posts a link to their news site. That's ridiculous. Hacker News also falls under this law, so does X, Reddit, Mastodon,... Since when it became ok to charge for your users sharing links on your "link sharing" website?

Re: Canada demands Meta lift news ban to allow wildfire info sharing

#82

Post by catchnear4321 »

kennywinker wrote: post #70
catchnear4321 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the content was already created. posting it to facebook is an optional means of distribution. no, i wont consider posting the article to be work. > rent seeking is wanting to be paid for no new work which if it weren’t information about disasters, most people wouldn’t care about too much. posting or hosting, once the article is written, it’s all rent seeking.

> posting or hosting, once the article is written, it’s all rent seeking. That almost makes sense in a non-digitized world. I.e. It’s not rent seeking to sell newspapers, because each newspaper costs money and takes work to make - but in a digitized world, you’re essentially saying any profiting off content is “rent seeking”. Like if I make a video course teaching a skill and I try to sell it, that’s rent seeking? Se…

it’s not rent seeking for the original creator to sell content direct to a consumer.

if you wish to carry this further from the initial point, you do so without me.

Re: Canada demands Meta lift news ban to allow wildfire info sharing

#83

Post by kennywinker »

Mystery-Machine wrote: post #81
kennywinker wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook wants to make money off selling ads next to other people’s content. News media wants to get paid for the content they pay to create. Who’s rent seeking again?

Disclaimer: I hate Facebook. I despise them. In this instance, if I understand correctly, Facebook is supposed to pay news companies whenever someone posts a link to their news site. That's ridiculous. Hacker News also falls under this law, so does X, Reddit, Mastodon,... Since when it became ok to charge for your users sharing links on your "link sharing" website?

As I understand it the law:

1. Defines a negotiation framework between news creators and online sharing sites. So not a specific fee, just forcing sites to come the table. Which means flat rates (not per share) or percentage based arrangements (like spotify does with artists) are totally possible.

2. only applies when there is a significant power imbalance between the news creator and sharing site. This bit i think means it wouldn’t apply to hn or a mastodon instance. Twitter i’d guess it would apply to. reddit idk, they’re smaller than you’d think.

Re: Canada demands Meta lift news ban to allow wildfire info sharing

#84

Post by three3 »

kennywinker wrote: post #64
three3 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Facebook already blocked sharing news, so... Where's the rent seeking?

Fb killed most of the previous forms of media that people would have turned to for this news. But now facebook will sell us the solution, but only if we don’t regulate them in any way. Sounds fair?

[dead]

Re: Canada demands Meta lift news ban to allow wildfire info sharing

#85

Post by kennywinker »

catchnear4321 wrote: post #82
kennywinker wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> posting or hosting, once the article is written, it’s all rent seeking. That almost makes sense in a non-digitized world. I.e. It’s not rent seeking to sell newspapers, because each newspaper costs money and takes work to make - but in a digitized world, you’re essentially saying any profiting off content is “rent seeking”. Like if I make a video course teaching a skill and I try to sell it, that’s rent seeking? Se…

it’s not rent seeking for the original creator to sell content direct to a consumer. if you wish to carry this further from the initial point, you do so without me.

> it’s not rent seeking for the original creator to sell content direct to a consumer.

So it’s rent seeking for the original creator to post it for free and sell ads against it?

And what’s with this “original creator” language? Does that only apply to the author, or can the company that paid the author to create it sell it without being rent-seekers?

My point is: you called fb and news producers both rent seekers, and i don’t believe they both are unless you use a overly broad to the point of useless definition of rent-seeking.

Re: Canada demands Meta lift news ban to allow wildfire info sharing

#86

Post by jsnell »

kennywinker wrote: post #79
jsnell wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where’s the problem? Either they stop inserting ads, or they pay. Well, one pretty big problem is that nothing analogous to "stop inserting" ads is an option provided by the law as passed in reality. You've made it up to make the law sound better than it is. That you had to resort to such fibbing seems like a pretty good indicator on how flawed the bill is.

I’m not fibbing to make a point. > The goal is to support news businesses to negotiate and receive fair compensation when third parties with a dominant market position monetize their news content https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/pl/charter-charte/c18_... It’s possible there isn’t a loophole where they can just demonetize news, I haven't read the law back to front, but the law only exists because of their monetiz…

Evaluating a law based on some non-normative fluff text is like judging a book by the marketing blurbs.

The law does not mention monetization of the news content as a requirement. It does in fact not mention monetization at all.

It is true that the law sets up enforced bargaining, but in a way that effectively precludes any outcome where Meta does not pay money.

If Meta links to any news content from any eligible news company, they must negotiate with everyone. If anyone they are negotiating with is unhappy with the result, they can take it to binding arbitration, and the law forces the arbitration committee to reject any offer that does not "contribute to the sustainability" of Canadian media. Any final offer from Meta that does not involve then paying a sum that is obviously enough would be rejected and automatically cause the opposite final offer to be accepted, no matter how unreasonable. (This is not symmetrical; the news company does not need to suggest a deal that's obviously not too bad).

The arbitration panel would incidentally also be forced to reject any offer that is based on a revenue share of ads shown for news content. (Since that would allow Meta to control the amount paid.)

Given this, why would any Canadian news company agree to a deal that allows non-monetized linking for free? As long as Meta plays the game with even one company, any of them can force Meta to both share their content and also be paid for it, whether Meta profits from it or not

Re: Canada demands Meta lift news ban to allow wildfire info sharing

#87

Post by redeux »

hotstickyballs wrote: post #60
clessg wrote: post #57

As a Canadian, trying to wrap my head around this whole kerfuffle reminds me of an old South Park episode ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeWn3Sso2RE ). Naturally. Slightly abbreviated: > So... What exactly does Canada want? > We want ... more ... moneh. [dramatic pause] > Yeah, more moneh! > More money from where? > How-how 'bout the Internet! The internet makes lots of moneh. So give us some of that moneh! > Yeah…

Unfortunately the only expertise politicians understand is making money so hopefully meta starts seeing the value of lobbying

> hopefully meta starts seeing the value of lobbying

The implication that Meta doesn’t see the value of lobbying is hilarious. You can read their policy for “Meta Political Engagement”[1] and see that they are already quite invested and savvy in this area.

1. https://about.meta.com/facebook-political-engagement/

Re: Canada demands Meta lift news ban to allow wildfire info sharing

#88

Post by frumper »

dbingham wrote: post #77
twoodfin wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but the idea that Facebook, or even Meta generally, has a monopoly on communication is absurd on its face.

It has a monopoly on certain forms of connection and communication. You could easily say the same thing about telephone companies, that it was "absurd" that they had a monopoly on communication - after all, people communicate in many other ways beyond the telephone: mail, face to face, telegram, and so forth. But we still treated the telephone companies as having a monopoly on a critical form of communication. And we…

Having a lot of users doesn’t make one a monopoly. Having the only way to communicate makes you a monopoly. People can type in www.cnn.com and get their news just fine.

Re: Canada demands Meta lift news ban to allow wildfire info sharing

#89

Post by prepend »

kennywinker wrote: post #39
prepend wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When they stop existing, that’s less money. What I mean is that the postal service provides a server, people mailing letters. Facebook’s service is people messaging each other. If people started sending links to each other in the mail and it kills newspapers, should the postal service pay? People message all sorts of stuff on Facebook. And it frequently causes companies to make less money and/or stop existing. That d…

Ok so to make your postal service analogy accurate let’s add a detail: whenever you send a newspaper clipping the postal service opens the letter and inserts a piece of junkmail. Ok now imagine the gov passes a law saying “if you insert junkmail into a letter containing a newspaper clipping, you have to pay a fee to the newspaper”. Where’s the problem? Either they stop inserting ads, or they pay. As for “make less mo…

The postal service sells stamps. They already make money off every letter sent. Does it matter if it’s a stamp or a junk mail flyer?

Re: Canada demands Meta lift news ban to allow wildfire info sharing

#90

Post by kennywinker »

prepend wrote: post #89
kennywinker wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok so to make your postal service analogy accurate let’s add a detail: whenever you send a newspaper clipping the postal service opens the letter and inserts a piece of junkmail. Ok now imagine the gov passes a law saying “if you insert junkmail into a letter containing a newspaper clipping, you have to pay a fee to the newspaper”. Where’s the problem? Either they stop inserting ads, or they pay. As for “make less mo…

The postal service sells stamps. They already make money off every letter sent. Does it matter if it’s a stamp or a junk mail flyer?

It matters to me if my mailbox is full of junkmail instead of letters from friends.

Idk what point you’re trying to make, but at issue here is that journalism is being starved to death by sites like facebook that suck up all the profits and attention but don’t provide any of the service that journalism provided. That’s bad for canadians. This law may be the wrong way to fix this problem, but to talk about rules and principals and analogies without considering the actual consequences is pathological.

We’ve got no sharing news on facebook here now. If nothing is done, this is essentially where we’ll be in a handful of years anyway.

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