Changes to sharing and viewing news on Facebook in Australia

Post by DevKoala » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 7:56 PM UTC

anonymousab wrote: post #57

DevKoala wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook can say a lot of things, but I bet the publishers also have their own numbers and they are the ones who pushed for this deal.

They could have blocked Google and Facebook at any time. They didn't because they know the value is important if not existential. What they want is for Facebook and Google to be forced to list them, but also forced to pay for the privilege. If they failed to craft or pay for legislation to that end, it was nothing more than a mistake.

Post by anticristi » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 7:57 PM UTC

bawolff wrote: post #81

anticristi wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Awesome summary. It seems to me that this is a bit of a failure of the fair use doctrine. Making one preview of an image or article does not impact the author's monetisation ability. Making a business out of systematically producing previews (and adding your own ads around them) should no longer quality as fair use. We have a joke: A: How much is a drop of gas? B: A drop of gas? Well, zero! A: One million drops of ga…

Fair use (or i guess fair dealing in australia) isn't totally about not negatively impacting other people's businesses. It helps your fair use argument if you don't impact, but there are plenty of clear cases where its fair use despite negative business impact. For example writing a scathing negative review of something that has quotes for context.

Post by darth_avocado » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 7:58 PM UTC

tw04 wrote: post #78

Oh no, not that, anything but that. In all seriousness I hope this drives the less informed in Australia to seek out actual news sources and break out of the echo chamber that is Facebook. And I hope it forces Facebook to actually support journalism instead of leeching off of it. You can't have a robust democracy without a robust fourth estate.

Post by DevKoala » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 7:59 PM UTC

rsj_hn wrote: post #85

DevKoala wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook can say a lot of things, but I bet the publishers also have their own numbers and they are the ones who pushed for this deal.

You understand that publishers control the distribution of their content, right? Facebook users merely pass around links. Publishers can block page loads from Facebook or put up a paywall anytime they want to. Some (like WSJ) chose to do so and others do not. This is basically a decision as to whether they receive more in value from those links than they do from blocking the links. Thus the publishers have already re…

Post by bawolff » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 7:59 PM UTC

anticristi wrote: post #93

bawolff wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair use (or i guess fair dealing in australia) isn't totally about not negatively impacting other people's businesses. It helps your fair use argument if you don't impact, but there are plenty of clear cases where its fair use despite negative business impact. For example writing a scathing negative review of something that has quotes for context.

You are right. By "business impact" I was rather thinking that the aggregator simply diverts ad revenue, without adding any value. If I made a business which summaries other books without sharing revenue, I would likely get busted.