How is what Google is doing different than what a photojournalist has been doing for years for the NYT, AP, etc. when they shoot editorial photography for a story? They don’t ask for your permission when capturing that “content” to tell a story. It’s presumed that what’s out in a public domain (in the case of the photographer, anything in what’s designated as “public” space) is fair game, accounting for few exceptions. And those photos help sell stories. In the case of Google, they have access to what’s in the ether of the entire Web. Unlike Napster whose model circumvented an expectation of payment (for music), it seems as if Google had no such obstacle of perception around permission or compensation to explicitly overcome. Rather ingenious business model.

Carla
@carlainsf