I think newspapers tend to forget we don't need them either as there are many choices for news that are legit. They have for far too long used to captive audiences and that obviously is not the case. however like most industries which had captive audiences they fall back on regulations to protect their bottom line rather than improve their offerings.

Exactly and tbh Google could just buy a newspaper and not give a shit about it.

Many newspapers are rubbish and publish rubbish content anyway so that's the problem, not the copyright.

On the other hand, newspapers were a lot less rubbish two decades ago when they could still afford to employ many journalists. That is what they're trying to get back to with legislation like this.

That would be interesting if it were true, but it isn't. I'm old enough to remember newspapers and news stories from 20 years ago, and they were shit.

Google can strike a deal with a few news agencies to link to the first source of the news, and ditch all other newspapers, though.

Now that I think of it more, what stops Google from charging the news services for the privilege of being included in the search results?

I think they went rubbish before the internet in search of profits. Remember the old meme about whenever the news covers something you know well it is bullshit but you trust it in areas you don't know about? I recall it being obviously worse in the early established days of the internet where there was enough to fact check but not mainstream enough that journalists knew about it to make their jobs easier.

Admittedly I bear a hard grudge against them from my youth and how they would scapegoat and stir up moral panics about the youth and their media. Rainbow parties, bullshit claims about video games and anime, etc. They still love to use Millennials as a slur.

I personally suspect that demographic warfare came back to bite them hard as they grow up and don't trust the ones constantly talking shit about them on garbage grounds.

The EU would then fine Google for using their Search monopoly to dominate the News industry by promoting news article from the paper they bought.

And that would clearly be ridiculous (though believable that the EU would try). Are they going to fine Google for monopolising weather queries next? How about putting Casio out of business by abusing search monopoly to provide a free calculator?

Google does need them, and all the other content they index and search. Google just doesn't need any individual one of them.

I sympathize with that. Google's market power is problematic. But.. this is not a solution.

The issue is that we as a society need diverse and independent newspapers.

No we don't. I get my news from public broadcasters. They have the bonus of not pushing the owner's political agenda and being subject to public oversight.

Public broadcasters are always very soft on the party currently in power, since that's basically their boss. You need both public and private news.

Not always true, although they do tend to be soft on their own country. In either case you can solve that just by reading multiple countries' public news.

So, when are we getting that then?

Yeah. Start a newspaper that talks about such issues honestly, not like those so-called journalistic conglomerates that curate "local" newspapers across whole countries.

The issue comes from companies that were too powerful before they went to ask google for money.

Why stop at newspapers? How about diverse and independent provision of pretty much everything?

People don't appear to want this, of course. Pity.

Agreed. But this approach is not going to achieve that. On the contrary.