TechDirt’s Mike Masnick gets it exactly right in covering Canada’s C-18 bill:
If you believe in the open web, if you believe that you should never have to pay to link to something, if you believe that no one should have to pay to provide you a benefit, then you should support Meta’s stance here. Yes, it’s self-serving for Meta. Of course it is. But, even if it’s by accident, or a side-effect, it’s helping to defend the open web, against a ridiculous attack from an astoundingly ignorant and foolish set of Canadian politicians.
And just generally points out the huge holes in Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez understanding from the Power & Politics Interview.
Linking is very different from downloading or copying. A link is only a reference to the content, not the content itself. The news site retains full control over the content. If the news site wants to make more money from visitors, they can use ads or paywalls.
What if an instance is getting enough donations to be considered profitable? Drawing the line at profitability just punishes success and efficiency.
BTW a lot of posts in c/canada have snippets copied from the linked articles. How is this any different from FB and google showing links and snippets?
It depends on the contents of the link. Is it a bare URL? Is it a text “click here”? Is it the title of the linked page? Is it a snippet of the linked page? You can quickly see how linking can incorporate copying depending on how it’s done. As you acknowledge further down:
On the point of profitable instances:
When such a successful instance begins having a “significant bargaining power imbalance” (with news businesses), then it isn’t and they’ll become subject to the law and will have to negotiate payments.
I gave the bill a quick read.
I consider snippets copying, not linking, but let’s agree to disagree on the terminology, because the bill covers anything from URLs to snippets anyway.
This is what the bill actually says, so we’re small fish and get a free ride.
Exactly.