Spain Passes Copyright Law; Demands Payment For Snippets And Linking To Infringing Content
from the taxing-google dept
Apparently ignoring just how badly this worked out for publishers in Germany, the Spanish Parliament has passed a law to fine aggregators and search engines for using snippets or linking to infringing content. As plenty of folks have described, the bill is clearly just a Google tax. As we had discussed, the proposed bill would be a disaster for digital commons/open access projects. There had been some thought that the proposed bill might be delayed because of a referral to the EU Court of Justice on a related issue, but apparently that didn't happen. Either way, it looks like the bill kept the ridiculous "inalienable right" to being paid for snippets -- meaning that Creative Commons-type licenses may not even be allowed, and people won't even be allowed to offer up their content for free. That's ridiculous.It appears that almost everyone dislikes the law that passed. On the internet/aggregator side of things, the law doesn't make any sense at all, and seems likely to harm any sort of aggregator setup. And, meanwhile, those who want greater copyright expansion felt the law was a "missed opportunity" that is described as "vague and weak." I guess the silver lining is that "it could have been worse."
This idea of taxing aggregators for promoting your content is still completely ridiculous. It remains to be seen if Google takes the same approach as it did in Germany, removing the snippets of those who protest, only to have them begging to put them back -- except that, unlike in Germany, the newspapers may not be able to grant a free license thanks to the whole "inalienable right" thing. Either way, it's unfortunate that this seems to be the direction Europe is heading in. These kinds of laws are a recipe for chilling effects on innovation online, scaring companies away from doing useful things.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: aggregators, copyright, google tax, links, snippets, spain
Companies: google
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
That's not actually a bad thing I'd argue. If the newspapers can't decide that they have no problem with Google not having to pay them in order to provide them increased traffic, and are forced to demand to be paid, whether they want to be or not, that will just help to show just how screwed up the law and the thinking behind it is.
If the newspapers and other are being told that they cannot decide who is, and is not, 'allowed' to use their content for free, it will just highly how the law isn't about 'protecting creators and copyright owners', but is merely about adding in a parasitic third party to collect 'tolls'.
Hopefully Google does the same thing here, as they did in Germany, and just removes the snippets entirely. With the 'inalienable right' bit thrown in there removing the 'free license' option, the only way the newspapers will be getting their increased traffic back is if the law is removed entirely, unless the lawmakers want to be so blatant as to make it clear that whether or not Google includes snippets, they are still going to be forced to pay regardless.
If they go that far... if Google is only looking at the short term I imagine they'll once more show a lack of spine, and fold, paying out. If they look to the long term however, they'd be better off blocking users in Spain from their services entirely, as if they fold here, other countries and governments will try the exact same trick in the coming years, and having given in once will make it that much harder for them to fight back later.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Remove any access to ALL of it's products (including gmail) from anyone using gob.es domains.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
For Google to state reasons due to their problems with Spanish Law makes them seem too biased. Silence would be better I suspect in this matter and makes the Spanish legislature explain and be on the back foot.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Instead of pulling their services from the country because it's too dangerous and costly legally to continue to operate there, suddenly they're 'Abusing their monopoly position by extorting the people of Spain in order to coerce the government to bend to their demands and revoke the recently passed law, due to greed and a desire not to justly compensate copyright owners', or some such rot.
Then it would be Google on the backfoot, trying to counter the claims made by the Spanish government, rather than the other way around.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
remember that even a single link can be considered a snippet because it usually has WORDS in it
/:p
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Lost in translation
- Spanish for "Goodbye cruel world!"
"Inalienable right"
- Spanish for "And I'm taking you all with me!"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Mind, it won't work, people will always find a way around the parasites and gatekeepers, and the more they try and maintain their iron grip the more people will come to ignore or hate them and the laws they buy, but I could very much see them trying it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Gatekeepers
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it" -- John Gilmore, 1993.
Twenty-one years later and the same forces are still battling.
E
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Gatekeepers
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I don't know what's going on with Spain's government recently. First it's Right to be Forgotten' and now they're proposing 'website referral licenses'.
Why is Spain trying to control the internet so much? Is there a Disney studio in Spain? Or are the Disney execs. throwing bags on money at Spain's judiciary and parliament?
I just don't get it. Spain's been acting pretty fishy lately.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Contradictory rights
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Protecting your inalienable rights, whether you want us to or not
'What if I don't want to be paid? What if I think that I'm better off not asking for payment for one of my pieces, for example if I want people to share something and spread it far and wide, expanding the audience for it?'
'You're going to be charging money for it whether you like it or not, you hear us?! This is not up for debate, and you have no say in it! Now sit down, shut up, and if you're lucky you might get a share of the money collected, once the ones who will be collecting it have taken 'their' share.'
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Protecting your inalienable rights, whether you want us to or not
That's why I have Google Ads on my pages. So I do get paid for the traffic I attract by the person who is routing the traffic. Not some third party that's going to decide my share after other more powerful content providers demand theirs.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Contradictory rights
I dislike the way they then use those rights as a means by which they can rob the creators blind. The only inalienable right that they support is for them to get paid on behalf of the creators, while being able to use accounting tricks and abusive contracts to keep most of the money to themselves..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
The source are news agencies rather than newspapers. Google can easily afford to pay them and write its own news straight from the feed. As opposed to linking to other news outlets, that will kill the no-longer referenced newspapers dead, dead, dead.
That's not using a cannon to shoot a mosquito. It is using a rocket thruster, the way this is going to backfire.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Maybe Google should kill 2 birds w/ one stone, like the Roadrunner does, & show Spain why ISDS is such a bad idea?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
/:p
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Infringing Content
Faith in politics is dying.
Legacy media is the mouthpiece of state authorities in probably every western-style "democracy".
Information is power - as Google also knows only too well.
Oh boy, can't wait to see how this one plays out!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Investor state dispute resolution
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Investor state dispute resolution
On the one hand, I'd rather not see Google, or really any company, choose the nuclear option like that when faced with difficulties.
On the other hand, the more examples of states suddenly finding themselves facing billion dollar 'fines' for daring to act without consulting any companies doing business within the country, the less likely corporate sovereignty clauses will make it into treaties in the future, as governments will be much more wary of them.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Investor state dispute resolution
Me too - sort of why I made the comment.
I don't like to see democracy undermined - but when democracy has already been undermined then using the enemy's weapon against him might be the only way.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Investor state dispute resolution
Richard, is that you? Oh, indeed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Investor state dispute resolution
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Investor state dispute resolution
Hoisted by their own petard.
Kills 2 birds with one stone, shows the (evil) power of ISDS, and might make Spain rethink BOTH the new IP law and accepting any ISDS provisions in treaties.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The difference with the German situation is that
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: The difference with the German situation is that
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Is it possible that all of these moves are not connected to legacy players being paid and more geared towards exposing Google's perceived 'monopoly' in order to reign them in?
After all, if Google start making big players 'disappear,' then won't that eventually be seen as, perversely, Google censoring the internet?
Leaving aside any arguments that they already do that for their own gain. ;)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
A lot of the attacks on Google are driven by companies discovering that they are not as popular as they think that they should be, and therefore do nor rank as high in the search results as they think they should.
Also newspapers are fighting the problem that because of the Internet, printed papers are out of date before they reach the streets. Therefore they want someone to replace the income that they are losing to Internet competitors.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Inalieble rights to collecting societies
One of them, SGAE,
http://kluwercopyrightblog.com/2011/07/15/sgae-gate-spanish-collecting-society-facing-corru ption/
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
And if the newspapers don't want to 'disappear'(though other than one case where the judge basically ordered Google to remove all mention of a particular newspaper, all that would 'disappear' are the news snippets next to the links to the source articles), then maybe they should stop trying to shake down the one providing increased traffic and advertising for them, free of charge.
If someone is helping your business by sending you customers, and you try and charge them for the 'privilege' of doing so, well, don't be surprised if they don't particularly care to continue to help you, both now and in the future.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Does the law cover just news or everything?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Different Outlooks
This may also inhibit much of the domain swapping we've seen for so long by websites such any of the torrent sites, as with more teeth to bite, countries can use harsher tactics to protect their interests against rogue actors. I doubt it would ever escalate to full scale war, but I can surely see drone strikes, as these are a powerful deterrent psychologically against a country and its inhabitants. They also get relatively no attention, in the US anyway, so it's unlikely that there would be any political fallout, at least judging by how it's been viewed so far.
This could be a nail in the coffin for free software as well. As most kids grow up now with "it's disposable" and "software as a service" being the new socialized norm. Likewise, the ideas of GNU itself are outdated and old, why would you do something just for a hobby or just because without monetizing it.
These are social norms that, once the genie is out of the bottle there's no going back in. Ask anybody in the US over 50 how many cameras there are in their daily life. You'll likely here "too many" as an answer. Ask anyone under 30, and they likely won't know what you're speaking about. After all, they aren't hiding anything.
Its not all bad. And in some ways may actually be better. Think about an Internet that only exists within apps. where rogue machines cannot connect. these rogue sites can be removed from the WWW entirely. 99% of people can get by with just twitter, FB, news and sports, pandora , bank, govt, etc. so if going online were restricted to the APIs of apps, you would see hoards of computer HW scrapped. likewise things like piracy, child porn, terrorism would become a thing of the past, online at least. That's a world where I think we all want to be.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Different Outlooks
That is one of the most ignorant, terrifying comments ever made, @ Karl from Karlsruhe. I really hope you're being sarcastic.
At the end of the day, TTIP is nothing but a charter for world domination by US mulitinational corporations via ISDS.
The balkanized internet you propose would not only FAIL to solve the problems you've listed, it creates an horrific censorship regime in which only approved speech is permitted via approved channels.
No, no, no, no, NO!!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]