If the search engines don't respect the creators, there won't be anything to search in the future because creators have to make a living too.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The largest issue with search is that we learned about it when the web was young, when the universe was 'complete' - the entire web was searchable! Now our digital lives are utterly fractured - in apps, in walled gardens like Facebook, across clunky interfaces like those in automobiles or Comcast cable boxes.
I think the search engines are the new equivalent of publishing: an enabler of information.
Why can't Google, which likes to see itself as a 'Don't Be Evil' benevolent force in society, just write us a big check for using our stories, so we can keep checks and balances alive and continue to provide the search engine with our stories?
I think that the use of copyright is going to change dramatically. Part of it is economics. There is just going to be so much content out there - there's a scarcity of attention. Information consumes attention, and there's too much information.
Google can say they are not in the content business, but if they are paying people and distributing and archiving their work, it is getting harder to make that case.
Entrepreneurs need to recognize that, especially in the digital domain, they are unlikely to come up with something that is going to be permanently on top, that impermanence and ephemerality is the nature of the beast.
The ultimate search engine would basically understand everything in the world, and it would always give you the right thing. And we're a long, long ways from that.
It's the big boys, the Googles of this world, that are already benefiting from piracy and not paying the artists a dime.
We need to make sure that the things we are already working on turn out to do the things we believe they can do and creating value both for the world and ultimately for Google.
Producers are now employees, not creators.