What do we do about Google? The Great Debate

Gavin K. O’Reilly – President of WAN+IFRA

Our theme for this panel debate is to consider

“what do we do about Google”

.The blogosphere, the airwaves, and even the man on the street has an opinion.Only this week, we hear rumours of news publishers “ganging up” on Google; thenyesterday, we heard that GoogleNews has just decreed – seemingly inacknowledgement of the damage that their existing rules cause to publishers - that itwill limit free news access with its new "first click free programme"… So, never a dullmoment - which fuels the enigma that is Google.This afternoon, I want to stand back from the arguably provocative title of today’sdebate, and instead, talk about something more fundamental that should underpinany rational discussion on this topic. And that is

the issue of copyright

– adeceptively, simple legal principle.But to start, I want to first read a quotation:

“It’s mine – you can’t have it. If youwant to use it for something, then you have to negotiate with me. I have toagree, I have to understand what I’m getting in return”.

Are these the words of some billionaire media mogul? No, actually it was Sir Tim Berners Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, talking to the BBC last year. He was not talking aboutcopyright, but about personal information.And as a backdrop to this debate, I want to suggest that, the issue we face in themanagement of copyright on the web is

exactly the same

as that which we face inthe management of privacy and confidentiality on the web.Critics will say – but all information wants to be free? Well perhaps. But many whoadvocate the abolition of copyright - or simply ignore it as a constant irritation - arethe very same people who are most vociferous about the need to retain privacy. Andthe web infrastructure required to manage all types of information which is

not

to befreely distributed – whether for reasons of confidentiality or copyright – is the same.

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What do we do about Google? The Great Debate

Gavin K. O’Reilly – President of WAN+IFRA

So why focus on copyright?

Well, it’s simple - because media business models –almost without exception – are dependent on copyright; they always have been andwill always be. As every publisher in this room knows: copyright, in turn, creates theincentive to create and then distribute widely, an incredibly diverse world of content.The same information which

“wants to be free”

turns out to be quite expensive tocreate – and if it doesn’t exist, it’s hard to see how anyone can

“set it free”

So being able to make a commercial return is essential to justify investment incontent – whether we are talking news or education or entertainment – and thatdepends on having the mechanism to choose how that content is distributed, usedand paid for. That is what copyright was invented for 300 years ago – and when youconsider the breadth, depth, richness and diversity of 21

century media, it has beena stunning success - and that it why copyright remains as relevant today.However, what is clear is that

collectively

, we haven’t made copyright workproperly on the web, and that is down to we content creators who have

perhapsfoolishly

failed to enforce our copyright – although let’s not forget that reaching thebiggest possible audience is a noble goal not only of copyright law and the media,but also – famously – of Google. And it used to bring with it rewards for success,fuelling the media - which in turn fuelled ever more choice and diversity for societiesand individuals. The lack of copyright functionality online is, though, also down to thecontent aggregators who have broken that link between audience and success, whohave seized the opportunity and opted for an “a la carte” vision of copyright to servetheir own business needs and who, as we have seen with Google’s announcementyesterday about First Click Free, believe it is their role to dictate to publishers whichbusiness models Google will permit them to follow. So, what is missing is thecollective will to guarantee copyright protection and the technology to manage it.And when the matter of news publishers and Google gets debated, somehowpeople want to shift direction and talk about a new “paradigm”, as if copyright is

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What do we do about Google? The Great Debate

Gavin K. O’Reilly – President of WAN+IFRA

some historical irrelevancy in this modern age. Well, it isn’t – it forms the very basisof the internet and before it, the long and dramatic explosion in availability of knowledge and choice for consumers. It’s why hundreds of thousands of books,magazines and newspapers are published. The reason why we have hundreds of TV channels to choose from. And the reason we have – for now at least –commercially created content online. It is also the basis of success in the future for all publishers – be they big media companies or individual bloggers - andaggregators. Somehow, people wish to conveniently forget that there is a simpleinterdependency between what content providers do and what content aggregatorsdo, and really what we are talking about is how the legal entitlements andeconomics get fairly reflected.In his introductory remarks, Kees reminded us that, Google CEO Eric Schmidt didsay,

"It's a huge moral imperative to help [newspapers}"

– but as benevolent aposition as this may appear, I want to say that I am not advocating charity here...We publishers don’t need hand outs or crumbs from Google’s table... What we wantis a more rigorous and unambiguous acceptance on copyright, an acknowledgementof our right to choose our own business model, a more transparent technicalmechanic, and

perhaps

, less of the rather tired “fair use” rhetoric.Some years ago in a speech at the Frankfurt Book Fair – I accused Google of being“kleptomaniacs”. That was a harsh description – some might even say unfair. But Iwas mindful that Google was then (as it is now) the largest media company in theworld worth $190 billion – after only 10 short years in existence – and, it hadachieved this vaulted position by developing an ingenious model that did not actuallyrequire it to pay for content. In truth, my awe for this commercial success was onlymatched by my envy!But in calling Google a “kleptomaniac”, I was merely reflecting on the basicunderlying principle of copyright that says:

“Not Saying ‘NO’, doesn’t actually mean YES”

, and the content aggregators (be they Google, Yahoo, or the countless

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