Google agrees to pay publishers in new licensing deal
Google has announced it will begin to pay some publishers for news content following a global push for the tech giant to even the playing field in digital media.
In a blog post from Google News’ vice president of product management, Brad Bender, the billion-dollar business revealed it had signed deals with Germany, Brazil and Australia.
So uh, how do we sign up and why have some people already been able to sign up? Is this going to be like Twitter pushing their chosen high quality news source: BuzzFeed? Is Google going to pay all journalists or just a few? If Google News only partners with paid entities then independent media will be devastated.
Major publishers will likely go first, and Google isn’t paying journalists, it’s paying the organisations that employ them. Take it up with your employer to get on the negotiating table.
You were meant to crush NewsCorp, not pay them.
Disappointing!
If Google is paying, can control be far behind?
this is very odd. Just a few weeks back, the head of Google in ANZ posted a blog in which she was adamant the company would not be paying news publishers for content. That would not have been published without the knowledge and approval of Google HQ. But now Google HQ has come out saying the opposite. What has driven the abrupt backflip? Also, will be interesting to see just which publishers Google does sign up for this content licensing initiative and how much money we’re talking about. The only publishers mentioned in this story as being involved or supportive of what Google has announced could hardly be described as major players. I suspect it will end up being a relatively select group of small to medium publishers and not a lot of money involved. Certainly nowhere near the $600m/year the likes of News and Nine feel they should be paid. In other words, something of a sideshow….