UK Paper Insists Google Is Out To Destroy British Culture
from the troll-bait dept
Matthew A. Sawtell was the first of a whole bunch of you (seriously, stop submitting this!) to send in the hilariously myopic rant by Daily Mail editor Alex Brummer in which he claims that Google is out to destroy British culture. Brummer takes a criticism that has been levied by a few folks within the entertainment industry in the last few months -- that the government of David Cameron has somehow been "suckered in" by Google because one of Cameron's top advisors is married to someone who works at Google -- and then layers onto it some hysterically clueless claims about Google's desire to destroy culture.This all comes in response, of course, to the UK review on copyright, which David Cameron announced with a nod towards Google, and how its execs pointed out the lack of fair use rules in the UK would have made it difficult for a company like Google to start in that country. The results of the review are expected relatively soon, and this article seems to be part of the media campaign to stop the government from actually implementing anything sensible. I mean, we've already seen the preposterous claim from UK publishers that fair use would stifle innovation.
In this piece, however, Brummer simply goes into paranoid fantasy land with a bunch of his claims against Google. I can't even bother to go through them all because there's not that much time in the day. But here are a few howlers.
The reason is very simple. The company wants to plunder intellectual property -- songs by Adele and other British singers -- so that it can disseminate it free to anyone who logs on to Google anywhere in the world.That must be why Google's current music search points everyone to places where they can buy the music. It also must explain why Google has been negotiating with the record labels for big licenses to allow for music streaming in a music locker system. It also must explain why Google has become a huge source of revenue for the record labels via YouTube and its content ID system.
The irony is that Google is alien to much that Britain holds dear. It has no respect for private property.I certainly can't speak for Google, but I've seen no indication whatsoever that it has no respect for private property. But taking photographs from public roads is not a violation of private property. And, I'm sorry, but it's simply impossible to take the Daily Mail seriously on a claim that taking photos in public is a violation of private property, when it has front page stories that show a woman's see-through top with a headline screaming about how you can see her breasts. Or this article, highlighting some rich young woman with photographs of her in a bikini while vacationing at a private hotel. I would suggest that those are a lot more about violating someone's privacy than a photo of a castle.
Our Englishman's Castle has been turned into public property by Google Earth -- which offers aerial views -- and Street View, created when an army of Google cars travelled the length and breadth of the country taking pictures of our streets and our homes to put on the internet.
So dominant has it become that it has helped to destroy great swathes of other media in its wake, from regional newspapers in Britain and the United States to business directory companies.Say what now? Seriously, how has Google destroyed any newspaper? Brummer is simply making stuff up. Google drives traffic to newspapers. How has it destroyed a single newspaper?
In its determination to boost the Google model and to encourage other internet search sites to follow it, the Government seems to believe the internet should be free and open to everyone.And that's a bad thing how exactly? Don't we want more people to have access to the open internet?
Google may have won over the hearts and minds of the Prime Minister and his aides, but all over the world it is increasingly recognised that the search engine is like a giant vacuum cleaner parasitically sucking up content from media companies, publishers, film makers and musicians without paying anything back into the creative process that produces such high cost entertainment.Google doesn't "suck up" any content. It points people to content on other sites. It's a useful service. I would imagine that Brummer probably uses it quite frequently in his role as a journalist. Now, some of Google's users may upload content to YouTube, but as already discussed, YouTube has been writing big checks to various media properties thanks to its ContentID system.
There's a lot more like that in the article. I recognize that it's pretty much pure troll bait on the part of Brummer and the Daily Mail, but it troubles me that so many people are setting up discussions about copyright as "internet companies" vs. "media companies." It's not about that at all. It's about what's best for innovation and progress as a whole. That means what's best for everyone? Is it true that companies like Google are doing well by embracing openness on the internet? Yes. At the same time, it's also true that traditional media companies have struggled due to their inability to embrace these new models and technologies. But that doesn't mean that one side is "killing" the other. It just means that the old media companies need to adapt and get with the times. They can learn quite a bit from looking at why Google was successful. It wasn't in trying to lock up everything and relying on government-granted monopolies. It was all about enabling more things to happen and putting in place business models to capitalize on that...
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Filed Under: copyright, culture, fair use, intellectual property, uk
Companies: google
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screaming about how you can see her breasts
Thanks Mike :)
Google is just a punching bag anymore.
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* They either complain that immigrants are:
(a) stealing jobs that would go to British people, or
(b) not taking jobs, and living off benefits
Their ability to complain about both typifies their hypocritical stance on nearly everything**
** Except Princess Diana, the princess of our hearts!!1!one!
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Wrong paper; you want the Daily Express for your Daily Diana Updates.
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This guy can go back to stone tablets if he likes
As a journalist, he is welcome to go back to stone tablets if he likes, but I will be keeping my laptop and smartphone.
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Not Newspapers!
It doesn't drive traffic to newspapers, Mr. Smartypants! You can't link to a newspaper!
For someone with "tech" in their name, you guys clearly don't understand technology.
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Re: Not Newspapers!
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Of course, destroying newspaper companies would be a harder feat.
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They're about as reputable as the Weekly World News (cue "So I Married An Axe Murderer" lines.)
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Re: Daily Mail
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The good thing is that there will be no shortage of paper to wrap the traditional Chips&Fish that are so popular.
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There now seems to be a business making greaseproof paper and cardboard/styrofoam boxes printed to look like newspaper!
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Only this to add
Creative.
-f
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while fox may be less than fair and balanced (as it claims) as far as a news organization it stands head and shoulders above the daily fail.
and that in and of itself is a pretty condemning statement to make about any supposed news organization
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OMG google card taking pictures of houses
Then it says . . .
Arriving at destination on right in 600 feet.
(and a picture of the house appears on the phone screen.)
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Re: OMG google card taking pictures of houses
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You do realise this is not about an actual castle, Mike?
An Englishman's castle is his home!
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The point being, yes it is a tabloid that most people on this blog dismiss, but an awful lot of British people read it.
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Besides, The Sun has a higher circulation than either paper, having built its sales based largely on topless women, gossip and bingo games. That doesn't mean we have to take their attempts at journalism seriously.
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A lot of people read the dandy (a uk comic)
A lot of people read the sun (which is a comic masquerading as a news paper)in fact more than the daily fail.
brings to mind this saying great minds think a like or fools seldom differ.
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You mock Glenn Beck and the people who listen to him and Americans mock the Daily Mail how does that sound?
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1) Things that are ruining England (things in this category include: everything)
2) Things that either cause or cure cancer (this in this category include: everything)
They also dislike the internet because they assume their readership is made up of people who don't understand the internet. So none of this is surprising.
Unfortunately though, I do agree with some of the other ACs. Most people on the internet dismiss the daily mail as a joke and being generally crap, but it's still the 11th most read paper in the entire world, which is ridiculous. It's more popular than any newspaper in the US, for example. Its website is also incredibly popular worldwide (moreso than the paper edition).
So like it or not, the daily mail is a force to be reckoned with. You can't just ignore it because it's dumb.
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and as weekly world news, the star and the national enquirer have proven over time... yes you can actually ignore it because its dumb. you can also take the option of either ignoring their readers or making fun of them because they are readers as several comedians have discovered.
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It is dumb, it *should* be ignorable, but it isn't. When one of the major newspapers in the world is reporting something blatantly stupid and/or wrong, you can't just laugh it off and ignore it, because the millions of people who read it and don't know any better *won't* ignore it. They'll treat it as valid news, as a fact, and it'll affect their judgements in the future.
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It's difficult to argue that Google Street View is a violation of British values until they remove all the CCTV cameras in London.
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Maybe I'm a bit old-fashioned in this area, but if an editor's page needs any interpretation to understand its point, he's very poor at his job.
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It is so bad (but also so predictible) that someone came up with a headline generator. It messes around with their hyperbole and paranoia.
http://www.qwghlm.co.uk/toys/dailymail/
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My favourite line of the article was this:
"Nine out of the first ten websites which pop up on Google’s search engine are run by pirates who have downloaded Adele’s output and offer it online far more cheaply than official copyrighted sites and High Street retailers."
Out of curiosity, I searched for "adele" to see what would come up. Here are the top ten hits, in order:
1. Official website.
2. News results.
3. Video results.
4. Wikipedia page.
5. MySpace page.
6. Image results.
7. Facebook page.
8. Last.fm page.
9. Some lyrics site's page.
10. Amazon.com.
PIRATES AND THIEVES THE LOT OF THEM
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Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if the Fail would be happy to try and shut down the news results, not to mention the social media sites (they're one of those sources who try to blame Facebook for any crime with any tangential relationship to a user).
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At least some of the YouTube hits are from VEVO, which is industry-owned, so hopefully (but not realistically, I suspect) that would be exempted from the things to be shut down list.
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HMS Daily Waily sails into Pirates Bay
"Why David Cameron must stand up to his friends at Google: The future of music, books and even the law could be threatened"
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1375276/Googles-latest-power-grab-threaten-future-music-book s-law.html#ixzz1JJc68hF9
Yep, not just Brummer's article but 2 more of the same ilk from the Mail this weekend by Philip Delves Broughton. My favorite line "even the law threatened".
Of course, USA readers should realise that this is all part of a Whitehall/Westminster bunfight going on in the UK. The Hargreaves IP Review (the "Google review") was set up by one government department Business,Innovation, Skills (BIS - political boss Vince Cable - Liberal Democrat-falling star) but implementation of digital copyright aspects now seems to be with another department, Culture, Media, Sports (CMS- political boss Jeremy Hunt -Conservative-rising star). The "creative sector" were never happy about the "open rights bias" of the Hargreaves panel and now with the shift of power to Hunt are belatedly lobbying like mad via all channels against fair use in the UK. Thus HMS Daily Waily firing broadsides. A complicating factor is that Dynamic Dave, our beloved leader, having got the hots for Google and fair use and set up the Hargreaves Review cannot be seen to lose too much face when the review finally appears. It would all be a laugh if it wasn't for the risk of collateral damage to copyright reforms badly needed by the educational and research sectors in the UK.
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Google was also the enemy of The Times
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The Daily Mail
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