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Why doesn't Google need licensing to scrape and reproduce NYT snippets in their results? OpenAI doesn't even quote the sources its consumed to produce it's outp

Why doesn't Google need licensing to scrape and reproduce NYT snippets in their results? OpenAI doesn't even quote the sources its consumed to produce it's output. It seems totally fair use to me. Any given content site has authors that read stuff that is copyrighted and produce their own take.

aurareturn 3y ago
News outlets are trying to make Google pay for snippets.
- tourmalinetaco 3y ago
  Which went so well with Canadians and Facebook.
- monkeynotes 3y ago
  The Canadian news media tried this with facebook. Ended up with them crying about how they lost all the ad dollars from traffic from FB when FB said fuck off.
- notahacker 3y ago
  They've already succeeded in non-US jurisdictions https://blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/google-licenses-content-from-news-publishers-under-the-eu-copyright-directive/ https://blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/google-li...
quonn 3y ago
There is a robots.txt. If this mechanism would not exist, I would argue that the publishers have a case regarding Google (they are trying). But it does exist and so they shouldn‘t.
- figassis 3y ago
  Missing robots.txt does not automatically grant you the right to use copyrighted content.
  - cxr 3y ago
    <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_presupposition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_presupposition> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question>
- mrkramer 3y ago
  Somewhere I read that a lot of websites don't even have robots.txt so I wonder does Google's crawler bots skip those websites or do they crawl them as someone said as a "fair use". Speaking generally about internet search engines; majority of the websites on the web want to get discovered and attract people to their whatever (web store, web community, web blog etc.) The interesting idea I was thinking about is that a big company which operates a search engine like a Microsoft (Bing), can pay for example popular websites like Reddit, NYT, WSJ to have exclusive crawling right and therefore block Google from crawling their websites and only allow Bing to crawl them. This would then spark search engine content war which could significantly weaken Google's monopoly because a lot of people would switch to Microsoft Bing only because Reddit results show up in their search queries. This would be akin to Netflix investing billions of dollars in the exclusive content which then brings them a lot of new subscribers and lot of new revenue. In another words - user acquisition.
dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
> Why doesn't Google need licensing to scrape and reproduce NYT snippets in their results? Because Google established that it was fair use in a court of law. > Any given content site has authors that read stuff that is copyrighted and produce their own take. That's fine as long as you're human, if you're a machine then it's a purely mechanical process and subject to copyright.
6gvONxR4sf7o 3y ago
When I worked on something related-enough a few jobs ago, I was surprised when our legal dept said that google (and pinterest) generally doesn't have a legal leg to stand on with regards to that kind of thing, but since they link to the thing they're quoting/copying, they have a relatively symbiotic relationship. If you sue google into delisting you, you end up with less traffic, so you don't sue.
- cxr 3y ago
  It's possible that you misunderstood and/or are oversimplifying. Failing that, you should be surprised—anyone saying something like that really ought not be in a position where someone looks to them for counsel. This has been litigated, and precedent is in favor of search engines, not against them. It does depend on the nature of what exactly we're talking about, though. (Again: it's possible that the question they answered doesn't match what you understood them to be saying.)
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 3y ago
    Oh yeah, I'm definitely simplifying a ton of discussion with legal, but that's any discussion with them, lol. It was part of a broader discussion about IP liability regarding user image content, specifically referencing google images in this case, not snippets, so in this case works were reproduced in full. But the gist of my point, and my understanding of their point is that the often said "google serves other people's content like this, so my not-quite-the-same idea must be legal" isn't nearly so simple.
sega_sai 3y ago
That is explicitly discussed in the text of the complaint. Google produces snippets with a direct link to the NYT and drives readers there.
lambdasquirrel 3y ago
Google isn’t trying to pass the knowledge off as its own. When Google or Bing display summarized information, they provide links in citation style so you know where the information came from. Compare that to what you get from ChatGPT. If it were a college student, it would get kicked out for plagiarism. This is one of the foundational pillars of Western cultural and academic integrity it’s subverting.

aurareturn 3y ago

News outlets are trying to make Google pay for snippets.

tourmalinetaco 3y ago
Which went so well with Canadians and Facebook.
monkeynotes 3y ago
The Canadian news media tried this with facebook. Ended up with them crying about how they lost all the ad dollars from traffic from FB when FB said fuck off.
notahacker 3y ago
They've already succeeded in non-US jurisdictions https://blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/google-licenses-content-from-news-publishers-under-the-eu-copyright-directive/ https://blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/google-li...

quonn 3y ago

There is a robots.txt. If this mechanism would not exist, I would argue that the publishers have a case regarding Google (they are trying). But it does exist and so they shouldn‘t.

figassis 3y ago
Missing robots.txt does not automatically grant you the right to use copyrighted content.
- cxr 3y ago
  <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_presupposition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_presupposition> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question>
mrkramer 3y ago
Somewhere I read that a lot of websites don't even have robots.txt so I wonder does Google's crawler bots skip those websites or do they crawl them as someone said as a "fair use". Speaking generally about internet search engines; majority of the websites on the web want to get discovered and attract people to their whatever (web store, web community, web blog etc.) The interesting idea I was thinking about is that a big company which operates a search engine like a Microsoft (Bing), can pay for example popular websites like Reddit, NYT, WSJ to have exclusive crawling right and therefore block Google from crawling their websites and only allow Bing to crawl them. This would then spark search engine content war which could significantly weaken Google's monopoly because a lot of people would switch to Microsoft Bing only because Reddit results show up in their search queries. This would be akin to Netflix investing billions of dollars in the exclusive content which then brings them a lot of new subscribers and lot of new revenue. In another words - user acquisition.

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago

> Why doesn't Google need licensing to scrape and reproduce NYT snippets in their results? Because Google established that it was fair use in a court of law. > Any given content site has authors that read stuff that is copyrighted and produce their own take. That's fine as long as you're human, if you're a machine then it's a purely mechanical process and subject to copyright.

6gvONxR4sf7o 3y ago

When I worked on something related-enough a few jobs ago, I was surprised when our legal dept said that google (and pinterest) generally doesn't have a legal leg to stand on with regards to that kind of thing, but since they link to the thing they're quoting/copying, they have a relatively symbiotic relationship. If you sue google into delisting you, you end up with less traffic, so you don't sue.

cxr 3y ago
It's possible that you misunderstood and/or are oversimplifying. Failing that, you should be surprised—anyone saying something like that really ought not be in a position where someone looks to them for counsel. This has been litigated, and precedent is in favor of search engines, not against them. It does depend on the nature of what exactly we're talking about, though. (Again: it's possible that the question they answered doesn't match what you understood them to be saying.)
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 3y ago
  Oh yeah, I'm definitely simplifying a ton of discussion with legal, but that's any discussion with them, lol. It was part of a broader discussion about IP liability regarding user image content, specifically referencing google images in this case, not snippets, so in this case works were reproduced in full. But the gist of my point, and my understanding of their point is that the often said "google serves other people's content like this, so my not-quite-the-same idea must be legal" isn't nearly so simple.

sega_sai 3y ago

That is explicitly discussed in the text of the complaint. Google produces snippets with a direct link to the NYT and drives readers there.

lambdasquirrel 3y ago

Google isn’t trying to pass the knowledge off as its own. When Google or Bing display summarized information, they provide links in citation style so you know where the information came from. Compare that to what you get from ChatGPT. If it were a college student, it would get kicked out for plagiarism. This is one of the foundational pillars of Western cultural and academic integrity it’s subverting.