Google and Publisher's Rights

Germany currently has a fiercely fought debate, if publishers should share in the income, Google accumulates through using the publishers content.
As the publishers slowly lose any basis to gain income, the discussion is not only a hypothetical one, but one really determining the future of organized publishing.
Though most parties in the discussion overlook the strategic importance of this discussion.

Google did not really get the point of the discussion in comparing the publishers request with a hypothetical share, hardware providers could as consequence also request for making the internet possible.
Publishers do not determine the functionality of the internet, but provide the content.
Hardware providers already share in the success of the internet,
publishers who 'create' the content, do not get a share, but everyone thinks he can spread their created content for free, while the content will not be created much longer, if the current development continues.
Should this discussion should not be resolved, the future will look rather bleak in ways of well researched content on the internet.

But as publishers also did undermine their own demands by spending less and less on research, replacing all experienced employees with freelancers (nothing against them) and student volunteers working for free, the publishers already lost the only unique advantage they had. As a result this discussion soon will not be of any kind of importance much longer, as publishers are loosing their believability fast.

That publishers 'sell' their articles and make them part of an advertisement deal, does not help to increase their believability.

One suggestion to resolve the topic would be, as not the publisher, but the language determines the online search, that Germany as a nation shares in the created income accumulated with the German language results by Google.
Germany can share the generated income to its own liking with the German publishers and content providers (which in principle is every German speaking internet user putting something publicly visible online).

An Interesting Interview ...

An interview, which alerted me to the modern reception or more correctly scepticism in today's society about politics was the interview on the BBC Breakfast Show about "Spooks" (10/2008).



The interview is in no way criticising politics - on the contrary. The polite way of answering the interviewers questions on a personal experience basis is cleverly done and in my opinion a great way of founded criticism. Here the abilities of the actor (which I knew from "North & South") as well as the topic of the series "Spooks" caught my attention.



P.S.: I do not mention the actors name here in this blog post, as I once read on a fan-blog about him, that mentioning his name alone brings a mega uprise in click rates. As I do not want to use his popularity for my sake, I refrain from mentioning him here directly.

At first I wanted to shorten his name as a replacement for 'special someone' to the initials. You easily will find out, why, as a German historian, I refrained from doing so, when even my university had problems shortening the summer semester that way.