Melville House Books

Whether its music, films, or whatever, “content owners are finally realizing they’re better off helping their customers use digital media than trying to stop the march of technology,” and no where is this better exemplified than in the Google / AAP agreement, says L. Gordon Crovitz in a Wall St. Journal commentary. But beyond what’s been discussed so far — such as, say, whether writers and publishers are getting screwed by the deal — are some other far-reaching implications. For example, as Public Affairs founder Peter Osnos observes, “Google has now conceded, with a very large payment, that information is not free. This leads to an obvious, critical question: Why aren’t newspapers and news magazines demanding payment for use of their stories on Google and other search engines? Why are they not getting a significant slice of the advertising revenues generated by use of their stories via Google?”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.