Wrong: Google (or Bing or Duckduckgo) is not making money off their content. Google is making money off the index they compile, of the service they offer above and beyond what the publishing houses offer. Nobody wants to go to each newspaper page and see what they write about a specific topic. Now, the publishing houses could agree and build their own index, shut google out and be done with it. They'd even have a much better starting point to do so since they have vastly more information about the content they server. But they don't. Quite to the contrary, they try to shut down services that provide such a service (Perlentaucher springs to my mind here).
It's not about pity and support for google either. There is a monopoly on the other side as well: Most publishing houses are pro this legislation, so you read very little against the proposed law in major publications. It's good that a corporate player now takes up the flag to counterbalance for that - even if it's google.
The proposed law is poorly worded and poorly targeted, it will endanger bloggers who cite from newspaper publications, even linking the headline on facebook may open you up to a lawsuit. It would practically require all bloggers to go back through their blogs and strike all mention of newspaper articles from past articles. So even if I could somehow accept that the publishing houses should be awarded some of googles earnings - in this case I'd have to join their flag. But if you can't rally behind a good cause just because "google deserves a slap on it head", then rally behind IGEL [1] which is the (bloggers) initiative against the proposed law.
Again the important difference between what a law is INTENDED to be and how it actually USED. And while I see at least some truth in the very basic idea of the leistungsschutzrecht, I also see the potential of using it ways that are very different from the basic idea of helping content creators, especially since it's the very same people who now support that law that used to support ACTA et al..
For me this law is there to protect printed newspapers from the evil internet thing (including small web-only publishers and bloggers). That it's supported by all big german media and publishing houses isn't a coincidence. But in the end it won't help them, since from my point of view the print crisis in Germany is to no small also caused by poor journalism and an unability to create new revenue streams as it is by the "internet" per se.
A further risk, and you can actually call me a little bit of a tin foil hat if you want, you ahve a nice little law in place that can actually be used to suppres inconvinient information. Add all the other laws already in place that are used to hunt movie pirates and file sharers and the Stasi or Gestapo would have cut their right arm of to have equal opportunities to isurvaill and influence the public.
And the forth power in a democracry, the press, is actually promoting things like that just because they are to lacy and stupid to protect their bottom line in a different way.
Do I mean to support Google? No, because Google can also be pretty harsh when profits are concerned but for now Google is the lesser evil. Maybe in 10 years from now there wil be initiatives targeting Google inspired legislations who nows. But right now, the leistungsschutzrecht is like burning down the house in order to prevent from being maybe flooded some day. And not liking the guy who want's to do something about it isn't, IMHO, a good reason to just stand by and watch it happen.
Wrong: Google (or Bing or Duckduckgo) is not making money off their content. Google is making money off the index they compile, of the service they offer above and beyond what the publishing houses offer. Nobody wants to go to each newspaper page and see what they write about a specific topic. Now, the publishing houses could agree and build their own index, shut google out and be done with it. They'd even have a much better starting point to do so since they have vastly more information about the content they server. But they don't. Quite to the contrary, they try to shut down services that provide such a service (Perlentaucher springs to my mind here).
It's not about pity and support for google either. There is a monopoly on the other side as well: Most publishing houses are pro this legislation, so you read very little against the proposed law in major publications. It's good that a corporate player now takes up the flag to counterbalance for that - even if it's google.
The proposed law is poorly worded and poorly targeted, it will endanger bloggers who cite from newspaper publications, even linking the headline on facebook may open you up to a lawsuit. It would practically require all bloggers to go back through their blogs and strike all mention of newspaper articles from past articles. So even if I could somehow accept that the publishing houses should be awarded some of googles earnings - in this case I'd have to join their flag. But if you can't rally behind a good cause just because "google deserves a slap on it head", then rally behind IGEL [1] which is the (bloggers) initiative against the proposed law.
[1] http://leistungsschutzrecht.info/