Comments on: Microsoft: Not all information can be free

In a speech in London, Microsoft's top intellectual property strategy counsel argues for the need of a model in which content creators are better compensated.

[Jack K1]

I don't get it. Without Google News, I would have never found or read this article. Google drives traffic to news provider's pages. If they can't make a profit from that, then it's not Google's fault.

[humanssssss]

Why do you think traffic equals to money?!?

You are consuming a news article for FREE. Advertisers won't advertise on a website even though there's a lot of traffic when they can't get any sales.

Traffic != money. It's not a cause and effect, it's a correlation.

[rapier1]

You might have a point but without any content what is Google going use to fill its News page?

[The_Decider]

How does one "consume" a news article.

That makes no sense.

[Penguinisto]

"Why do you think traffic equals to money?!? "

Looking on this particular HTML page I see ads for IBM, Vonage, and some Google-sponsored AdSense links at the bottom. MSN, Yahoo, and Google paid for the RSS feed sub buttons to the direct right of this edit box I'm typing in. A paid-for pop-up semi-translucent advert wafted across the screen momentarily. I suppose I could dredge through the cache and count the number of new advert-based tracking cookies that attempt to park themselves in there...

[Renegade Knight]

You have a point. Aggregators like google expose us to a lot of sources. In turn those sources need to figure out how to capatilize on that.

As for as the folks who are naysaying traffic as a way to make money. All things considered I'd buy the C-Store with more traffic on the road in front of it than the one with less. I may or may not make money wiht either, but my odds increase wiht the store that has access to higher traffic.

[skeese2]

I think Rubin has it backwards. 1. the main stream media is becoming much more like tabloids, People, and sports new: all entertainment and very little important news. We don't need to compensate them more to get more of their content. The growing Internet alternative is driven by pride of authorship and a desire to make a difference. Most of the bloggers make almost nothing from their efforts, so money is clearly not their motivation. People use Google to find news and information, not to read it on Google's site. Presumably Rubin is a free market proponent, so let the market decide. My vote is for the bloggers and people who have something useful to say, not the Bay area rags. I paid for access to the NYTimes and would again. I don't have to because they found they did not need to charge to make it a worthwhile endeavor.

[humanssssss]

I enjoy my daily dose of valleywag. It's not useful but hey at least it's making me dumber ... i like.

[Maccess]

If Microsoft doesn't want to give its information free, that's fine with me. But it shouldn't go around lobbying that information should not be given away free. There are just people who want to publish original information for free, including myself. It's my right to publish my original works for free, and I've published various works under GFDL and CC licenses. A big company can't tell me what to do with my own works.

[humanssssss]

Why do you have issue when someone goes around saying information should not be for free. I've seen millions of books online set for a price. Oh, don't I wish they are FREE?!? But these authors are asking for money!!! They are advocating that information is not free.

You are lucky I wrote this comment. I gave it to you and any other reader to read for free.

[Commander_Spock]

Yeah right; Commander_Spock and Crew were for years (do a search on this same CNET NEWS site and see for yourselves) telling the world for free what was going to happen to the engineering economies of the world if certain computations were not addressed (re: ERR FUNCTIONALITIES) and if REDMOND gets it right this time. It was the "CONCORDE" then - followed by the housing and financial markets and now it is the BIG THREE U. S. AUTO MAKERS. Well, pretty soon there will be a premium on "the services" on how to commence the world's economic recovery. No more free breakfasts, lunches, and dinners - if REDMOND gets it "right" before you do!

[bhushan bhaagii]

However much Microsoft tries to disguise it, its DNA shows up. What they are whining about is the fact that they have
invested substantial sums in content creation, and not receiving a penny for it. And, of course, Google, (their bugbear)
is merrily monetising others' content and laughing all the way to the bank.

It's one more tactic in a long line of FUD strategy, wherever Microsoft finds its interests are not being served. Why should MS get bugged if individuals, companies and organisations put up information for free.

[Penguinisto]

@Maccess: Agreed.

[igal_alkon]

Microsoft gives very little for free, and the money you pay them is for lots of crap (see windows vista). if they don't want information to be free, so be it. but they shouldn't stick their nose to other companies.

besides. google news prints a very short summery for the articles and if you press it goes to the newspaper's page, so if i read summery, and the article is not interesting for me, there's no reason for me to enter this site. they are the one who should make it worth for me to click and enter theirs site.

and, believe me, as web developer, i'm sure this news sites get a lot more hits directed from google then they would get without.

[amigosito]

Journalism has always been a cut-throat low-margin business, at least from the perspective of most journalists who are trying to make a living. The average salary of a CNET employee is a goldmine compared to print rags, but laughable compared to the money you can make as a freelance writer for a software company. I agree with MSFT's position in theory and think that it is ultimately in Google's best interest to compensate and provide incentives for content creators. After all, if there is no original content there is nothing to find and thus no Google. However, it's pretty obvious that MSFT's opinion is biased given their vast reserve of IP and vested interest in proprietary code models. Ironically I think Google pioneered the concept of compensating content owners with AdWords. But I would like to see this taken a step further to a point where there are standardized and automated ways to be compensated for everything from linkbacks to our personal information; ie, for both our IP and our PI. Data brokers and other companies have gotten rich over the years by using and abusing our personal information; it's high time we started taking back control of our identities and our imaginations and I think the balance of power will eventually shift towards a model where clickbacks, syndication, scrapes will become a source of income, and where PageRank is a measure of how much you can charge for the use of your IP and PI, at least on the Internet.

[imacpwr]

Quote: "If Microsoft plans to save the publishing industry with a better business model online, it had better hurry."

"The Golden Age" of publishing is over and unfortunately the only thing that could save it at this point would be to shut down the Internet..

[Penguinisto]

MSFT sure does whine a lot these days...

Seriously - it is not up to Google to prop up failing business models. RedHat and IBM seem to rake in more than enough money out of information (read: code) that they essentially give away for free.

There was once a time when the majority of people had to pay a Baron or Lord for the privilege of living on his or her lands... even if they bought the house and/or farm. Mind you, this is in addition to other taxes and levies the typical serf had to pay up. Anyone care to return to such an arrangement? Didn't think so.

There was once a time when ALL software carried a high pricetag, and even after buying it you were not allowed to use it in any way not specifically allowed by the vendor... which is what Richard Stallman and his cohorts managed to break-up back in the early 1980s. That logjam-breaking allowed a guy to write DOS (a variation of CP/M), which in turn allowed a handful of guys from a small Albuquerque computer shop to buy that code and sell it to IBM, eventually turning it into the basis for Windows. That same company now wants to restrict software as much as it can - what with it being the big dog and all of software these days...

News is no different. Yes it takes time and money to get that news, but nowadays you can often get better news from folks on-the-scene, but who aren't on a journalism staff - news that isn't flooded with ideological slant (or if it is, you already know the slant up front and can adjust your opinion and judgments accordingly). There are exceptions of course, but this doesn't stop the press from leaving the ivory towers and being carried by the masses...

/P

[Sumatra-Bosch]

Really, what he means to say is that the world should pay Microsoft for access to content and since that isn't happening the world has to be reconfigured around Microsoft's whims.

[Mikebanks]

Perhaps a change in terminology is in order. "Content" is so cold and impersonal. Although it's so hip to flash around, tagging something "content" it makes it too easy to forget that someone put themselves into the short story, magazine article, non-fiction book, song, painting, novel, or other unique artwork.

Let's start calling things what they are, and continue reminding people that most of the best of this "content" is created by people who depend on it for their income. If things continue to go in the direction they are now (including "sharing" everyone's commercial work) many more creators will be out of work (and unable to produce as they were because they have to do something else to get paid). And they'll be making sure what "content" they are able to produce doesn't get into the hands of people who make money on it while they don't. Then over 99 percent of the Web will be amateur sights and sounds that impress their creators and few othes. At which point, "content" will have to be called "craptent."
--Mike On the Way to the Web

[idfubar]

How is the relevant if you get your news from PBS?