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,…
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…
The EU Copyright Directive is so bad it’s proving really hard to transpose into decent national laws
Walled Culture has written numerous posts about the EU Copyright Directive, because it contains two extremely harmful ideas. The first is the “snippet tax“, an attempt by some…
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…
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…
Yet another move to funnel money to big copyright companies, not struggling creators
When modern copyright came into existence in 1710, it gave a monopoly to authors for just 14 years, with the option to extend it for another 14. Today,…