August 4, 2006 | In Business, Technology |
Google has recently revealed plans to pay the Associated Press newswire service for the right to aggregate its stories and pictures on news.google.com.
Financial details of the deal were not released but it seems that Google and the AP have been negotiating this new arrangement for a number of months now.
There’s no doubt that the search giant can easily afford this extra little expense, but in the long run, it could end up being a big mistake. Google News depends solely on its ability to aggregate news from other sources, and now that one publisher is getting paid, others will likely demand the same treatment.
One of my websites (TeleClick.ca) has been indexed in Google News for nearly a year now, and I’ve gotten a lot out of it – namely free advertising, respect from other content publishers, and general publicity for my site. But Google has never paid me for my content, and the thought of them doing so has honestly never crossed my mind.
Legally speaking, Google News is covered by the principle of fair use, which allows the authorized reproduction of copyright materials in certain situations. The search giant has stressed this fact repeatedly when fending off legal challenges, but what they don’t seem to realize is that words don’t speak nearly as loudly as actions.
By agreeing to pay off the Associated Press, Google may well have opened some pretty dangerous floodgates, which could easily result in all of its 4500+ content providers demanding payment for their work.
As far as I’m concerned, Google News is a great service as it always has been, and content providers should consider it an honor to be included in this fairly exclusive collection of news websites. They have every right to monetize the traffic they get from Google, but they shouldn’t expect direct payment from the web giant itself.
As it stands now, Google News is a free service for everyone, and it should remain that way.
As a former news publisher, I see your point, though, I don’t think “all 4500 content providers” will be interested in receiving payment… maybe the top 1 or 2% from the big sources (I’m thinking Cnet’s News.com here, as they seem to really dislike Google
) might start complaining about it.
While under no obligation to do so (afaik?) if News.com would like to be removed from Google News (i.e., if Google refused payment) I’m sure they’d gladly remove it. Chances are the smaller publishers (TeleClick-esque) are rather impressed by what Google’s done for them, and would never ask for more in return.
Most of the main web media outlets make profit from advertising revenue, which is entirely dependant on traffic (which is exactly what Google is offering in exchange for the content), AP on the other hand, profits from content licensing - is this really comparable given the context?
Comment by Joey — August 31, 2006 #
Damn, WordPress screws up my paragraph formatting really bad in the comments.
Comment by Joey — August 31, 2006 #