Google confirms it’s only blocking Canadian news orgs as defined under the Online News Act and would not, for example, block the New York Times or Fox News.
As @mgeist notes:
“The effects will be devastating for Canadian media, who will disappear. In their place will be foreign outlets and lower-quality outlets that do not qualify as eligible news businesses under the law.”
@ParanoidFactoid @llebrun @mgeist
By all means, use this opportunity to promote Canadian journalism.
But let's not pretend there was ever a reason to be angry at Google or Facebook about this.
They were showing extracts of Canadian news and linking back to the original reports, which is allowable under copyright law as fair use.
Then our myopic politicians, egged on by dinosaur media, passed a law saying they would have to pay the sites to continue doing that.
[...]
@ParanoidFactoid @llebrun @mgeist
So Google et al had a choice: they could continue to do as before, and pay this "link tax", or they could stop showing these excerpts of articles by Canadian media, along with the links back to them, covered by this act.
There is no third option.
So they chose option (b). That was entirely predictable; C-18 was a stupid idea, and fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the web.
You can't be mad about the choice we forced them to make.
@ParanoidFactoid @llebrun @mgeist
I'm not defending #Google (or Facebook, etc) - I dislike Google intensely and don't use any of their services in my personal life.
I'm criticizing our #politicians for passing a law that led to this situation.
I'm criticizing them, and the dinosaur media orgs who thought this would turn into a cash cow, for failing to understand both the functionality and the economics of the web.
I'm criticizing them for being stupid, and then getting mad at others for it.
Luke LeBrun
Paranoid Factoid
C.