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I'm confused about who the news belongs to. I always have it in my head that if your name's in the news, then the news should be paying you. Because it's your news and they're taking it and selling it as their product. But then they always say that they're helping you, and that's true too, but still, if people didn't give the news their news, and if everybody kept their news to themselves, the news wouldn't have any news. So I guess you should pay each other. But I haven't figured it out fully yet.

-- Andy Warhol



Journalism is printing what someone else does not want published; everything else is public relations.

-- George Orwell (possibly wrongly attributed)



Someone with enough clout and reach should start a mass movement spanning the world. There will be lots of supporters. Clearly people who create news (and legally should be considered owners of that news) should be compensated by publishers who profit from that news. It will have far reaching social impact. It will provide monetary benefits to people who decide to sell their news stories and also solve the problem of online privacy. Point is sports bodies have long argued that they own the content they create. Why is the same not true for individuals as well? Of course politics will have to be made an exception.


Who has to pay whom for reporting on a congressional scandal?


The reporter needs to get paid. Usually a publisher will pay them and publish the story. Everyone else running the story is a leech. Places sharing headlines and linking to the proper publisher are usually helpful.


But the reporter didn't create the news, they just reported it. The news was created by whoever was involved in the scandal, so they should be paid.


Says the guy who took other people’s images and sold them...


You should read his bio.


every artist does that. he just did it in a straight, sorryless way. hence the concept in his conceptual art.


> every artist does that.

Um, no.


Clearly he’s making a joke...


Andy Warhol wouldn't be on HN I guess.


Warhol had a fascinating perspective on mass-produced pop culture, having enough insight to pretty much game the system


That's why Macintosh and he was a perfect match, one took pictures the other took windows-es (xerox) ;)


I don't think anyone has figured it out yet, because if you aren't paying for news, then you are the product and not the consumer, and yet most news is still free.

...or maybe they have figured it out.


Ok, I am not paying for reading the news feed on HackerNews. I suppose you aren't paying either. Are both of us HackerNews' products?


Actually I think hacker news is the Google in this scenario. They are profiting off aggregating the content of other news outlets. I’m not sure it’s right/wrong or how it’s going to work but if Australia says you make money off aggregating their news you must pay some legislated amount, I’m not sure I agree with the precedent of that


Have you stopped to think what YCombinator is getting out of paying the bills to keen this site running?


Is it costly for them? I assumed they thought it was good, cheap PR.


>Are both of us HackerNews' products?

Yes. We the users of HN are product - both individually, and also as a market segment, and also as a smart[0] crowd.

From [1],

  Y Combinator provides seed funding for startups.
To Y Combinator, the HN is both entry to the sales (investment) funnel, and a PR machine. And also early opinion & commentary, early beta-testing, load testing [2], and more.

That is not to detract from the (very probable) angle of pg & team wishing to render a public service for the public good :-)

--

[0] the occasional bad thread notwithstanding ;-)

[1] https://www.ycombinator.com/about/#whatwedo

[2] aka HN hug of death


>Are both of us HackerNews' products?

At least the product supporter ;)




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