A Canadian bill that will require Google and Meta to pay media outlets for news content that they share or otherwise repurpose on their platforms is set to become law
A Canadian bill that will require Google and Meta to pay media outlets for news content that they share or otherwise repurpose on their platforms is set to become law
“Bluffing” is an irrelevant framing if you believe — as I do — that news publishers should be paid for their content.
But the way these laws are written, it isn’t under the social media company’s control. The laws are saying that if any user posts a link to a news article the company owes the publisher money. So the social media company will just ban links that are going to cost them money.
They do get paid, when a user leaves the original site to visit the publisher and views their ads.
A taxi driver doesn’t pay the business that they drive you to for giving them the opportunity to drive you there. You pay the driver for getting you there and then you pay the business you wanted to reach.
This is very much just the huge Canadian media corporations lobbying the Federal government to get more money for no additional work. Something they’re very good at by now.
Why do news sites include the meta tags in the HTML containing some of the content then if not for the express purpose of it being displayed on these sites?
News agencies’ currency is attention, reach, trust. In this last cash grab as an attempt to salvage their dying industry they just made themselves even less relevant. I’m personally as happy as you are to see this happen, for different reasons.