EU Publishers Want a Law To Control Online News 168
suraj.sun writes with news that European publishers are also seeking ways to "protect" their content from the big bad intertubes. Their rant, termed the "Hamburg Declaration," asks the government to step in with a legislative fix. "Most of the statements in the relatively short declaration, which will surely take its place among thousands of other European declarations on intellectual property and other matters that have come out over the past few years, hinge on the idea that 'universal access to news' does not equal 'free.' In this respect, the publishers want to maintain the democratic ideal of a 'fourth estate' that provides news to an informed citizenry, while simultaneously restricting access to that news to those who can pay for it directly. What sets this declaration apart from the other Hamburg declarations out there, or from the various Geneva declarations or Berlin declarations, is that this one is intended to give the publishers' favorite solution to the news-stealing problem, the Automated Content Access Protocol, the force of law."
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I wish they'd focus on the news (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:freedom will not be found in "free" countries (Score:5, Interesting)
China doesn't much care about bourgeois western "intellectual property", so you can send spam hawking pirated software all you want. Send out invites for your next falun gong meeting or democracy protest, though, and you'll discover what 'so called "unfree"' really means.
The US is quite solid on speech that doesn't upset major corporations, and is an excellent spot for saying mean things about religious figures, expressing all kinds of fun political theories, hosting your "handguns I have known and loved" archive or whatever. Not such a good place to host "WareZ and DeCSS 4LyFE!", though.
There are plenty of locations(though exactly where they are tends to drift over time) where the state is weak enough, or enough in need of foreign investment/aid, that(as long as you maintain a polite disinterest in local politics, and pay the occasional bribe) they won't really bother you at all. Pretty much any government will come down on you like a ton of bricks in response to some class of actions on your part and pretty much any government has another class of activities of which it approves, or simply doesn't care.
Search engine retaliation (Score:5, Interesting)
The big dogs like google could start charging these guys to index their precious. I wish they would have done something like that rather than cave into AP, etc, for just quoting little snippets to have *something* to show where this news link was coming from. Do it on a case by case basis, the various news websites want their news paywall to be indexed, they should pay for that professional servgice, if they don't throw up a paywall, then they get indexed for free, like today. Ball is in the news orgs court then when it comes to what they think things are worth or not.
I have mixed feelings about google, but sometimes I think they are too nice and cave in too readily. It can't be that much fun to be the biggest of the big dogs and not get to bite some ass once in awhile.
Re:What garbage (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I wish they'd focus on the news (Score:3, Interesting)
Many governments publish gigabytes of CSV files, PDF files, and database files. I assume that's what you're referring to when you say you just want facts published. Should the New York Times just be filled with tables of data?
No, they should describe the contents of those documents in English and in an unbiased manner. That's what "the news" is. It's not sensationalist crap with a slant on the writers/editors/publishers view.
If you want that information translated into written English, the author of that text is going to have a point of view and a context within which they write. It's the way language works. And everyone wants other people to share their understanding of events.
Then they shouldn't be writing it. It has nothing to do with the language. What you are describing is a blog. The news is not a blog. If I read a news article that says, "this reporter thinks", "our analyst thinks", "our correspondent thinks", and I gave a fuck about what any of those people think, I would subscribe to their *blog*.
Tell me the facts and go away.
American newspapers (Score:5, Interesting)
While that is true for many American newspapers it's not the same for European newspapers. And Europeans read more newspapers than the average US American (according to the int'l newspaper association).
Then again Europe is not a country and with over 47 countries there are a whole lot of variety in newspapers (and sources).
In my own country newspapers are seen as an important public function and are subsidized to support independent, varied and local reporting [ejc.net]. It's given to support political views and cultural issues such as publishing in the regional language (official language, not dialect). Small, regional newspapers are seen as part of the democratic foundation of my country. I suppose that's why my countrymen and I read the most newspaper per capita in the world.
Simple depiction (Score:4, Interesting)
It probably doesnt hurt that norway is dark and encased in ice for a huge chunk of the year.
Nope. That's a simple and untrue depiction of my country. If you knew anything about Norway you would know that there is a great deal of variety from arctic Finnmark county to the summer paradise of our southern coastal regions. It's a very long country. You seem to think there's some kind of total winter darkness here? That's only in the far north, the majority of the country experiences four regular seasons. And the winters vary a lot, some regions don't even experience snow.
You do realize we do not have polar bears in our streets? The last weeks we've had great sunny days with temperatures above 86 F (30 C) - 95 F (35 C). Winters can be cold of course.
In fact the major factors behind newspaper readership in Norway is the high levels of education, grassroots political and organizational involvement. It helps living in a country where the majority of the population is college educated [for generations], and education is free. Even the least academic workers attend vocational schools here.
Also volunteering and involvement in organizations from sports clubs to the Red Cross/Lions/Kiwanis is extremely common. Everyone takes part. It helps create debate and involvement on issues and politics from local to national levels. Remember, it's a "socialist" country.
Re:If you don't want it indexed, then either (Score:3, Interesting)
Not really true. Only the minority are truly greedy, those that no matter how much they have always want more. The majority truly do share and care, whilst the greedy minority try to hide their psychopathy behind the claim that the everyone else that struggles for a comfortable place to live, healthy and satisfying food for the family, a future for their children basically trying live healthy and happy life with good neighbours, is somehow greedy, a real lie.
In this case the fourth estate who sold 'truthiness' to the highest bidder better suck it up, because if the fourth estate is truly protected than it is the truth that the fourth estate can produce that will be protected not the corporations that profit by the abuse of the truth. So protect the 'truth' in the fourth estate, corporations that hide, distort, and downright fabricate the 'truth' should be punished for the harm caused by that deceit, it is the fourth estate that is protected not mass media news as entertainment and advertising, in fact that version of it and it's commentators, corporate talking heads should specifically be targeted, prosecuted and imprisoned for the harm they wilfully caused to fourth estate based upon 'true' psychopathic greed.