[johbjo]

> They get extra visibility + traffic clicks from Google -- but also want to be paid for it?!?

Visibility is not a meaningful "reward" for established European newspapers (they are not unknown hobby bloggers.) The issue is who is capturing revenue from the work. The newspapers make money from people browsing their site (long ad exposure) or paying for subscriptions.

The news model: journalists discover "news facts" which they make into "news stories" that can hold reader attention.

If Google collects all "news facts" in one place with their own ads, they are benefiting from journalists while undercutting the newspapers.

[oytis]

> Visibility is not a meaningful "reward" for established European newspapers

Why? There are two ways how I would land on a newspaper's page. One is if I read them regularly, then I just go to their website directly to check what's new. That's what their loyal audience does, and Google doesn't affect that.

Another one is that I'm googling for news about a specific event or specific person - then I go to whatever pages Google shows me. That's how newspaper expand their loyal audience.

[danielrpa]

It appears that they don't want it and prefer other terms - pay me and you can use my headlines. We cannot force newspapers to accept Google's headlines-for-clicks system against their will.

[hutzlibu]

No, they want the audience google brings. They just want a share of googles profits, riding the anti google sentiment, google got for other things. Classic politics.

[pc86]

Can we force them to accept the reality of how the internet has operated for the last 4+ decades, or are they exempt from that as well?

[oytis]

I could be convinced that demanding to be removed from Google index is legitimate. But it's also not what newspaper want: they want to be indexed and be paid for it, no way for Google not to take the deal. That's state-supported extortion to me.

[shkkmo]

French newspapers clearly do want it as Google is being forced to display links to French newspapers by the French government.

[jstanley]

Yes, we can, that's what fair use is all about.

[jasode]

>The news model: journalists discover "news facts" which they make into "news stories" that can hold reader attention.

>If Google collects all "news facts" in one place with their own ads, they are benefiting from journalists while undercutting the newspapers.

If "news facts" is the framework for the proposed logic of compensation, it is being applied inconsistently.

Consider the final result of 2 professional soccer teams playing a game: FC Barcelona beats Real Madrid 2-1. The "facts" were generated by the players + the referee + the official scorekeeper, etc. A French newspaper reports on it: https://www.leparisien.fr/sports/football/direct-suivez-le-c...

Using first principles of "facts generation", should the French newspaper be required by Spain to share a portion of the ad revenue to each soccer team and La Liga league? If no, why is that not hypocritical?

Same as Ryanair announces a new airline route and French newspapers report it. It doesn't mean French publishers should pay some of their ad money to Ryanair.

Likewise, if Google issues a press release saying the next "Pixel 7 phone will be available October 2021" and French newspapers report that fact, it doesn't mean they should owe Google money just because Google produced that headline.

Newspapers have traditionally benefited from headlines being generated by the entire world and they get ad money for it without paying the sources of those headlines.

If Google did include article snippets beyond the headlines, that seemed like a reasonable threshold to pay license fees to French newspapers. Otherwise, a pure headline display is a symbiotic relationship similar to the symbioses newspapers enjoyed with sports reporting, Hollywood celebrities, corporate press release announcements, etc. The newspapers want Google to pay for something the newspapers themselves don't want to pay for.

[johnday]

Perhaps under this logic Google should start their own newspaper, which reports the publication of every news story on every French news website. That way they are simply reporting the facts, and are no longer liable for copyright infringement!

[nindalf]

And yet the same newspapers will protest vigorously is Google removes news completely. Google can opt out of this so called benefit without losing much. But newspapers desperately need this traffic.

Your theory that Google is benefiting more from this arrangement than the newspapers themselves isn’t true.

[shkkmo]

> And yet the same newspapers will protest vigorously is Google removes news completely. Google can opt out of this so called benefit without losing much. But newspapers desperately need this traffic.

Google can't actually. Google has been ordered to display links and snippets from French newspapers and is explicitly not allowed to remove French newspapers from their results.

[nindalf]

That’s my point. The French newspapers need Google for traffic. And so they (unofficially) partnered with the French government and courts to complete the shakedown. The courts force the use of snippets, then the government says “well you’re using these snippets so you must pay for them”.

[egeozcan]

So, in practice, Google has been ordered to pay. As a European, I can't sympathize with the French newspapers.

Perhaps they can disable the news part completely when viewed from France or does this also include search results?

[tynpeddler]

> Visibility is not a meaningful "reward" for established European newspapers

This is prima facie false. Google is not permitted to simply deindex these papers. The newspapers are demanding to be indexed and referenced, and be paid for it. It's pretty clear here that Google is providing a service to the papers, not the other way around.

[avmich]

"...demanding... and be paid for it"

I'm suspecting it's more important that newspapers are to receive money (for services) than that they demanding to be indexed (requesting service). It's newspapers providing service to Google here, in the form of interesting data which attracts viewers.

[nybble41]

Google was happy to refuse the "services" these newspapers were offering, by removing them from their index. The newspapers balked at that—because they get more value from being included in Google's index than they stand to "lose" from having Google show visitors just the headlines with links to the original sites. So they brought the government in to force Google to purchase the newspapers' services whether they wanted them or not.

[bla3]

If the headline being the valuable content is true, it suggests there could be a business that's like a newspaper that only publishes headlines without articles.

I'm not saying this to refute your comment! This might actually be a valid idea.

[saalweachter]

I believe that would be Fark, or maybe Twitter.

[blunte]

Yes, also like Twitter in that the headline/tweet without substance is adequate for most people these days.

This is one reason why social media has been such a successful part of political disinformation campaigns.

[threatofrain]

When NYT references the work of The Intercept, as they have done recently, ought the NYT pay The Intercept? [1] And if I summarize the facts of a French news article, ought Google be disallowed from collecting my facts?

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/12/climate/epa-pfas-fracking...

[ahtihn]

If visibility is not a meaningful reward, then I guess Google should just blacklist these news sites from the search engine.

Somehow I have the feeling that news sites wouldn't be happy with that, I wonder why...

[bserge]

But only using links seems OK - people will go to the websites and see their ads...