European
Union is determined to end Google's free riding with its new copy right
initiative on digital contents. The tech giants who are making huge
profits out of nowhere will be obliged to share profits now with content
producers.
European
Union laid out a copy right plan for digital media this Wednesday
September 14, and the US tech giant Google which was long been blamed
for the demise of newspaper business has been targeted along with other
digital platforms.
This
means that Google could have to pay to publishers for hosting stories,
or even snippets - headlines, accompanying pictures, quotes and
introductory sentences - in future.
Publishers’
groups have welcomed the news as they claim to contribute to the
success of digital platforms by providing high quality contents. Yet,
they maintain that google and other platforms do not share their
profits fairly.
Similar
to publishers, the artist community blamed the YouTube and said more
people are listening to music than ever, but this is not reflected in
performers’ income.
The current EU proposal would make it mandatory for video platforms to scan users' content for protected material.
Such
material is today removed only after individual complaints, and, in
many cases, is reposted under a different username almost immediately
afterward.
Furthermore
the EU also wants to increase transparency by forcing platforms to
provide profit figures to make it clear how much money they are making
on artists and reporters’ content.
It
should be noted that the same copy right initiative had failed in
Germany and Spain in the past as some websites saw traffic drop by up to
80 percent as a consequence and eventually 90 percent of the news
websites had to waive their rights to Google.
Google
voiced criticism over the way the commission wanted to support content
producers. ”Paying to display snippets is not a viable option for
anyone”, Google’s Caroline Atkinson wrote.
The European Parliament’s rapporteur on copyright, Julia Reda also criticised the plan calling it a ”disaster for the Internet”.
Media Bites Editorial - Tazeen Hasan
published on September 19, 2016
No comments:
Post a Comment