[mhomde]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Hacker News would technically be affected by the same Link tax. It would probably not be enforced but still.

It's such a stupid idea and I really lose hope about the future of a free internet when I see stuff like this. Hopefully saner minds will prevail

[merijnv]

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but Hacker News would technically be affected by the same Link tax. It would probably not be enforced but still.

The "link tax" isn't a tax on actual links. That name is a misnomer, it applies to links that reproduce key parts of the linked content inline.

So, for example, Google News links duplicating the headline and providing a summary. Because, in essence, Google News is copying content from news organisations/sites reducing their traffic (usually skimming headlines is enough to cherry-pick the few things you care about) while themselves profiting (keeping people on Google sites and around Google ads longer).

Whether this "link tax" is the right solution is debatable, but I hope we can agree that Google and Facebook abusing their dominant position this way isn't health for the world.

This does not apply to HN, because HN isn't reproducing any of the linked content inline.

[exodust]

> Google News links duplicating the headline and providing a summary.

What summary? I only see headlines on Google news. Where is the summary?

Often there's long headlines, but that's just writers trying to get good at SEO. Not that I mind long-ish descriptive headlines, but it's not content, it's still just link text, and an editorial choice to cram it with an entire paragraph.

[dalf]

What about RSS ? Many news sites have a RSS feed : * http://www.spiegel.de/schlagzeilen/tops/index.rss * https://www.lemonde.fr/rss/une.xml

So as an individual I can use them, but the dead Google Reader would have meet the same issue than Google News ?

[tannhaeuser]

The publisher can control how much content is exposed via RSS (typically just the lede), whereas with presenting scraped content by third party news aggregators, the user will never need to visit the origin site.

[Andrex]

The publisher can also control how much is shared with third party aggregators, either through robots.txt or a paywall method.

Which has been the case since search engines became a thing.

[tannhaeuser]

That isn't the same at all. A publisher cannot use robots.txt, and much less paywalls, to indicate a part of text that can be shared in syndication.

[Andrex]

A paywall can. The page displays the snippet the publication is allowing to be shared, while the paywall hides the rest. I believe this is what a few of the bigger US newspapers are doing right now.

[Spivak]

I think the issue depends on whether a service is acting as a principal or an agent. If a user signs up for your service and says "I would like to subscribe to Mox News" and you pull data on behalf of your user then I see no issue.

But in the same way you as an individual couldn't republish those copyrighted works, your aggregation service where you choose from sources and publish your links and summaries wouldn't be okay.

[Kiro]

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/10/eus-link-tax-will-kill...

> The Directive is extremely vague on what defines a "link" or a "news story" and implies that an "excerpt" consists of more than one single word from a news-story (many URLs contain more than a single word from the headline).

[thrower123]

So it is a quote tax. That's really not any less stupid.

Almost every thread on HN has somebody quote part of the article inline.

[Spivak]

The rules for when you are and aren't allowed to quote copyrighted material are long, boring, but fairly well established.

> Almost every thread on HN has somebody quote part of the article inline.

Which is very much a violation of copyright if it's pasted verbatim. However, those comments which quote line-by-line with responses and commentary is covered under fair use.

[Jaruzel]

What about Graph tags, or the tags that do the Twitter cards? I'm guessing that an aggregation site that just uses those, would be fine?

This can all be easily fixed with a robots.txt entry and specific bot name for the Google News bot, or a special noindex meta-tag just for news aggregators.

[mhomde]

Are you sure? I get what you're saying, but I'm not sure they won't argue that applies links without summaries as well. And what about thumbnails?

I mean the "fair use" laws weren't exactly clear cut either but seemed generally sane

[mike22223333]

Headlines are exempted from link tax. Any part of body text is not.

[Kiro]

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/10/eus-link-tax-will-kill...

Do you have any source for that? According to the EFF even the pretty URL itself is enough:

> The Directive is extremely vague on what defines a "link" or a "news story" and implies that an "excerpt" consists of more than one single word from a news-story (many URLs contain more than a single word from the headline).

[jeffchien]

For my own edification, can you point me to where it exempts headlines?

[rawTruthHurts]

Correct me as well; but if memory serves right the issue was that google news did not display just a link, but also a two liner bit or so, giving a glimpse of the article and driving away people who were content just with reading that couple of lines. HN just gives you a link, it does not disclose any article content before you click the link.

[LolNoGenerics]

People pay to promote their links on google search. Why can't it be the other way around?

[knorker]

How can search engines exist in a capitalist system, then?

Because you don't propose a world without search engines, right?

Google tried for a long time to not have ads, but could not come up with an alternative revenue model and eventually had to.

[LolNoGenerics]

You missunderstood. They charge money to promote, but they don't pay for content. If I open a decent magazine or newspaper, there are ads and there is content which paid for in some way. How is google so different? Googles payment is that they give you traffic for "free" if you play by their rules. I.e. in case of wikipedia I am sure they would have hefty debt if it was fair for both sides.

[knorker]

I see. Well, the problem with analogies is that they don't always fit. Another analogy is that Google is a magazine store, and present front pages to customers on the shelves. The store probably doesn't pay random magazines for showing up so much as they are a middleman in the sale between magazine and customer. (disclaimer: I've never owned a store, but while yes the store may take risks on unsold inventory, unless their deal with the magazine is "we send back unsold inventory")

Both Google and such a magazine store are middlemen do work to add value and take compensation for it.

In neither case is there any theft going on, nor is anyone getting a free ride.

I guess I also question the very premise of "free under condition X" is "free". Condition X is simply the payment. So you are getting Y for the price of X.

If you demand that Google charge for content then I do question how the very business model of search engine could work. Pretty much by definition if Google (or anyone else) has to pay to direct traffic to you then they are disincentivised to direct traffic to you. It's as if a store lost money on every sale, but made money if customers were present in the store.

If you think people are cynical now about Google wishing people clicking on promoted content (ads) then watch them race to the bottom where they (and Bing and everyone else) will only show promoted content.

Because here's really where your analogy breaks down: E.g. clicks on organic search results on Google brings money to the newspaper (via ads), but a news paper article author does not get paid per person reading their article. In other words: It may superficially be similar in actors and content creation, but all that matters in economics is incentives, and the incentives are completely different. And nobody will pay for a disincentive.

[Double_a_92]

Hacker News doesn't leech the content of the linked site. At most some posts take the title 1:1.

[Brotkrumen]

There is no lower limit on what constitutes copyrighted material and what isnt in article 11. A headline would also be copyrighted material, so subject to a license fee. HN would have to pay for a license if it wanted to operate in EU.

[mnx]

Taking the title 1:1 is the policy, unless the title is bad. Also, what about those tl;dr comments people often post? Would that mean HN should pay?

[nkkollaw]

> It's such a stupid idea and I really lose hope about the future of a free internet

I really lose hope for the EU, not a free internet.

[laumars]

There EU is generally a force for good. Please don't let a couple of bad policies cloud your judgement against all of the good work that the wider organisation does.

[nkkollaw]

> There EU is generally a force for good

It might have been, I don't think it is anymore. I think they're passed that, and their focus in now on moving power from sovereign nations into the EU.

In addition to that, they've become corrupt enough to favor record companies instead of the citizens of the countries that are part of the EU (another example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18501825).

[laumars]

Here in the UK, a great many deprived areas were completely ignored by our own government whereas the EU helped fund regeneration on those areas.

The EU has also funded flood prevention programs in the UK while our own government has done naff all aside appearing for rhetoric soundbites.

Much of what the EU does goes unsung. And a lot of stuff gets completely misreported too (eg the whole bent bananas meme). In fact this has become so common that there's a coined term for it: euromyth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromyth)

[nkkollaw]

I'm well aware of what the EU does. I live in Poland and I see the signs.

However, all they're good at is redistributing funds. It's not the EU that does it, it's the local governments that do it.

Next!

[laumars]

Do you honestly think our respective governments would make that same investment if it were not for the EU? I honestly don't. You only have to look how the Tories (UK elected party) have put ever greater squeezes on the National Health Service, schools (even starting a program on privatising them because they're too self-absorbed rich kids who went to private school to even understand the problems normal working class families have - and trust me I have first hand experience that the Tories "academy" program (outsourcing schools to businesses) are failing kids!)

Since Poland is also shifting ever more right-wing (as seems the global trend these days) you're only going to see less and less money invested in deprived areas and services by your own government as well. Because for some reason some people see that investment as the work of left-wing socialists.

My closing point would also be that this is a small planet - do we really want to waste our limited resources and short life spans arguing over arbitrary lines on a map? It makes so much more sense to work together. We even teach our kids that cooperation is better - yet we cannot follow our own advice as adults? It's madness.

edit: actually it's worse than madness; it's just people with egos and silos of power.

[mcv]

The EU used to be a major champion for internet freedom, though.

[nkkollaw]

True, but not anymore I guess. It's not uncommon for governments to start out well and be clouded by power grabs later on, which is I think what's happening (unless it was the plan since the beginning, which we'll never know).

[mcv]

I don't think this is a power grab by the EU. I think many people who voted for this meant well, but were deluded into thinking this would accomplish what they want. They have sympathy for newspapers, and I do too; quality journalism is very important. I'm just baffled that they actually think this will mean Google will give money to newspapers. That's probably what some old people with a sore lack of understanding of how the internet works, came up with, and then relentlessly lobbied the EU Parliament to push it through.

The EU or its parliament do not benefit from this at all. Except that when this is over, hopefully they've finally learned not to let lobbyists set policy.

[nkkollaw]

> I don't think this is a power grab by the EU.

Sorry, I meant in general and not this specific instance.

> That's probably what some old people with a sore lack of understanding of how the internet works, came up with, and then relentlessly lobbied the EU Parliament to push it through.

I hold the believe that people in the EU commission are smart. That's why whenever stuff like this happens I assume they did it because of greed, not because they're so dumb and inefficient to not have consulted a few experts before drafting a law.

I'm not entirely sure, though.