[JohnStrangeII]

The directive works just fine. From the perspective of the EU commission it's perfectly fine not to scrap any content of other creators and not to make it available for free. It merely states that if you scrap content from other companies, then you have to pay for the content.

The purpose of this regulation is to protect the companies and journalists who actually assemble and write the news against a predatory business model.

[ako]

Google has determined that the best way to bring visitors to the newssites is by showing a few lines of the news item. Apparently google vistors are more likely to click on a link if they see a few lines of text.

This benefits the newssite, not google.

Those few lines function as an advertisement for the actual article. Usually companies have to pay for advertisements...

[shkkmo]

> This benefits the newssite, not google.

Since Google makes money off of most online ad sales, it often directly benefits Google as well.

[PyroLagus]

If the news site uses AdSense, which quite a few do, then yes. But I'm not sure if Google's extra profit is that significant. Especially when compared to the benefits the news sites get.

[shkkmo]

While Google does have Facebook as a real competitor, that competition is not on the ad networks side. Google controls the vast majority of ad networks sales (i.e. ads placed on publisher's sites)

Google makes a significant portion of the value for each ad.

> For displaying ads with AdSense for content, publishers receive 68% of the revenue recognized by Google in connection with the service. For AdSense for search, publishers receive 51% of the revenue recognized by Google. [ 0]

[0] https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/180195?hl=en

[jhall1468]

If that was their purpose, then they failed miserably. At least they'll find that out soon enough, as page views to those news sites are almost certainly going to plummet. And when they do it will be even more clear that Googles "predatory business model" was helping get these journalists and companies views.

[JohnStrangeII]

Protection by enforcing applicable copyright law, not in the sense of "helping someone out".

The news companies can opt to give away their content to Google for free. The directive merely gave these companies more choice, by stopping illegal web scraping without asking first.

[jhall1468]

They already had the ability to opt-out of Google scraping their articles. They already had a choice, just like they did in Germany. And the German news organizations realized views plummeted after they did this (https://searchengineland.com/german-publisher-group-sues-goo...).

This was never about choice, which they've always had, this has always been about both having their cake and eating it to. When French publishers inevitably see their traffic plummet, they will almost certainly sue Google for it.

[JohnStrangeII]

I totally understand your position.

The point is that it is always opt-in, though. There is no such thing as "use it as you like unless the copyright holder opts-out" anywhere in copyright law. You cannot just e.g. use substantial portions of someone else's texts in your own publications[1], sample a part of someone else's music for your own song, use someone else's graphics as your own, use an unlicensed font, etc., without a written permission by the copyright holder.

The EU directive merely ensures that existing laws are enforced instead of being systematically violated by large corporations.

Independently, of course, you could ask whether copyright law should be that way. I personally don't think so, and think it should be changed in various ways that strongly disfavor large corporations, but that's a completely different discussion. What I try to explain here is the rationale of the EU commission, which primarily thinks in legal terms, not my personal views about that matter.

If you ask for my personal views, I do find it appalling that large companies like Google (and Uber, Microsoft, AirBnB, etc.) continue to try to circumvent laws in ways that no small companies could get through with in court, simply because they have the business power and enough lawyers to give it a try.

[1] beyond fair use, which is very limited and does not apply int his case.

[theamk]

I it is not about opt-in, it is about getting both money and traffic from google. This quote from the parent linked article is very telling:

> After the passage of the law Google asked German publishers to explicitly opt-in or be excluded from search results as protection against liability. Publishers opted-in but filed an antitrust complaint, arguing they were effectively forced by Google to waive their copyrights.

[cameronbrown]

> sample a part of someone else's music for your own song, use someone else's graphics as your own, use an unlicensed font, etc.,

No, but snippets are considered fair use. At least, they were until Article 13 killed the concept.

[zmix]

If I am the reason for you, to have customers, then you could be a bit more relaxed about the fact, that I show a one- or two liner from your content. Because, that is all a snippet gives.

You want to play a role in the game? Well, then do your bidding...