Why Google’s new AI-saturated search page will be a disaster
Google didn’t invent full-text search of the Internet – that honour belongs to early pioneers such as WebCrawler, Lycos and AltaVista. But for the last 25 years or…
Walled Culture the book, three years on
Walled Culture the book (free digital versions available) was launched just over three years ago. A few weeks afterwards, I talked with journalist and editor Maria Bustillos about…
Yes, let’s “Make it Fair” – by recognising that copyright has failed to reward creators properly
A few weeks ago, the UK’s regional and national daily news titles ran similar front covers, exhorting the government there to “Make it Fair”. The campaign Web site…
The link tax’s failure to deliver meaningful benefits is a lesson for the copyright industry
It seems so long ago that people were trying to stop the worst aspects of the EU Copyright Directive. It was quite a battle, as Chapter 6 of…
Sharing material used to be the norm for newspapers, and should be for LLMs
Even though parents insist that it is good and right to share things, the copyright world has succeeded in establishing the contrary as the norm. Now, sharing is…
Daily newspaper drops paywall, moves to reader patronage, generates 37% more revenue
The problems and unfairness of the copyright system are so manifest that many would like to adopt alternative approaches. But that’s a big step, and one that undoubtedly…
Newspaper publishers’ obsession with link and snippet taxes is bad for society – and bad for them
Traditional newspapers have been complaining about the rise of the digital world for decades. Their discontent derives from the fact that they failed to recognise opportunities early on,…
Canada is planning to take the EU’s link tax as a model for one of its own new and bad copyright laws
One chapter of my Walled Culture book (free download available in various formats) looks at how the bad ideas embodied in the EU’s appalling Copyright Directive – the…
Like news publishers, magazine publishers want money from Google; here’s why it is happy to pay
Last week, Walled Culture noted that newspaper publishers still don’t understand what has happened in their industry. They labour under the misapprehension that the digital giants like Google…
Two reasons the snippet tax won’t wash as a solution, and what to do instead
Walled Culture has written a number of posts about the so-called “snippet tax” – the idea that platforms like Google and Facebook should pay for the privilege of…
How to save the newspaper industry (hint: not with snippet taxes)
There’s no denying that the newspaper industry is in trouble. In part, the publishing companies have themselves to blame. For too long, they have fought against the Internet,…
Microsoft tries to cosy up to newspaper publishers, forgets that for them, enough is never enough
A few months after the snippet tax was agreed as part of the EU Copyright Directive, Australia indicated it wanted to take the same route. The government there…
Publishers seem to believe their outsized sense of entitlement should trump democracy
One of the striking features of the copyright industry is its insatiability. No matter how long, broad and strong copyright becomes, the copyright world wants it to be…
Why the snippet tax of the EU Copyright Directive is pointless and doomed to fail
The EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market contains two spectacularly bad ideas. One is the upload filter of Article 17, which will wreak havoc not…
Interview | Cory Doctorow [Part 1]: Newspapers, Big Tech, Link Tax, DRM and Right to Repair
Author, journalist, and activist Cory Doctorow talks about the evolution of newspapers, the role and threats posed by big tech, the collateral damage created by link taxes and…