German Publishers Still Upset That Google Sends Them Traffic Without Paying Them Too; File Lawsuit

from the your-honor,-how-dare-they-send-us-traffic dept

Oh boy. Remember VG Media? That's the consortium of German news publishers who were so damn angry that Google News sends them all sorts of traffic without also paying them. A year and a half ago, they demanded money from Google. That failed, so they went crying to German regulators who laughed off the request. After there were some concerns that a new "ancillary copyright" right regime in Germany might require payment for posting such snippets, Google properly responded by removing the snippets for those publishers, who totally freaked out and called it blackmail.

Let me repeat that for you, in case you missed it: the publishers insisted that Google's News search was somehow illegal and taking money away from them, and thus they demanded money from Google. When Google responded, instead, by removing the snippets providing summaries to their stories, the publishers claimed it was unfair and blackmail. In short, not only do these German publishers want Google to pay them to send them traffic, they want such payments and traffic to be mandatory.

However, with Google removing the snippets, VG Media granted a "free" license to Google just to get the snippets back into Google News -- even though Google didn't need such a license. Meanwhile, they complained to German competition authorities about this supposed "blackmail" and like the earlier regulators, the German competition authorities told VG Media to go pound sand.

If you thought the situation was over, you underestimated the short-sightedness of VG Media and the German publishers. They've now apparently filed a lawsuit against Google over all this, taking the issue into court. Again: this is all because Google is sending their websites traffic... for free.

Meanwhile, these geniuses at the German publishers might want to actually play out this game strategy a little further. Should they actually win the case, they need to look no further than Spain to see what might happen. Remember, Spain passed a ridiculous law that not only put such a tax on aggregators but made it mandatory. It was clearly nothing more than a "Google tax" for Spanish publishers. Google's response? It pulled out the nuclear option and shut down Google News in Spain.

So even if VG Media and the German publishers "win" this lawsuit, there's a decent chance that they still end up shooting themselves in their collective foot, by pushing away one of the most popular news aggregators that drives a tremendous amount of traffic. It really makes you wonder about the thought process of the folks who run VG Media.

Filed Under: aggregation, ancillary copyright, copyright, germany, google news, google tax, snippets, traffic
Companies: google, vg media

German Competition Authority Decides To Take No Action Over Google's Removal Of Snippets From Google News

from the misusing-copyright dept

Almost exactly a year ago, Techdirt wrote about Google's decision to drop the use of news snippets from certain German publishers, who were members of the collection society VG Media, in a long-running dispute over "ancillary copyright", also known as the Google tax. VG Media lodged a claim against Google with Germany's competition authority, the Bundeskartellamt, in the hope the authorities would force Google to put the snippets back by licensing them. An interesting post on the Disruptive Competition (DisCo) Project Web site notes the Bundeskartellamt has now issued its ruling, and said that it will not open formal proceedings against Google over this matter:

The answer of the antitrust watchdog is simple: if an online service does not want to acquire a license for the display of snippets and hence only displays search results in a more limited, shorter version, it can do so. There is nothing in antitrust law that would prevent companies from doing so, even if they are found to be dominant on a given market.

The Bundeskartellamt's reasoning is quite simple:

Google announced that in future it would show search results relating to the websites of press publishers that were represented by VG Media in the legal dispute only in a reduced form if the publishers did not agree to a free-of-charge use of their work. Google justified this by claiming that otherwise it ran the risk of being sued for breaching the ancillary copyright.

The Bundeskartellamt considers this to be an objective justification for Google's conduct. Even a dominant company cannot be compelled under competition law to take on a considerable risk of damages where the legal situation is unclear.

The rest of the DisCo post explores research that shows the harmful effects Spain's Google tax has had on publishers in that country -- something that Mike wrote about back in July. The author of the DisCo analysis, Jakob Kucharczyk, has a good encapsulation of the problem common to all these attempts to introduce ancillary copyright:

The underlying flaw in this strategy is that these legislative proposals misuse copyright for industrial policy purposes. It remains unclear which problem or market failure these laws actually try to solve.

The question is: How long will it take European governments to grasp this point? And how much of their publishing industries will have disappeared when they finally do?

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: ancillary copyright, germany, google news, snippet tax
Companies: google, vg media

German Publishers Grant Google A 'Free License' Google Never Needed To Post News Snippets

from the well-that-solves-that dept

Remember earlier this year when German newspaper publishers, led by rights management firm VG Media, demanded Google pay them a massive amount of money (11% of all ad revenue on any page linking to their works) for having the gall to send those publishers traffic via Google News? VG Media insisted that Google's use of "snippets" was illegal. German regulators rejected this demand, but VG Media was still pursuing legal efforts to force Google to pay. Given that, Google did what made the most sense and removed the snippets for VG Media associated publishers. You'd think that this would make VG Media happy. Instead, it claimed that Google was engaged in "blackmail."

Yes, VG Media claimed that using snippets was illegal, but getting rid of them was "blackmail." The logic of a legacy industry.

Taking that logic one step further, VG Media has now decided to (and I'm not making this up) grant Google a "free license" to let Google use the snippets. This whole thing was about money in the first place, and now VG Media isn't getting any money... and it looks ridiculous and foolish for having tried this in the first place. The end result is the same: snippets are in Google News, VG Media publications are getting traffic, but VG Media has made itself look silly.

Filed Under: germany, google news, snippets
Companies: google, vg media

Google Removes News Snippets From Complaining Publications In Germany; Publications Claim It's 'Blackmail'

from the let's-see-how-that-goes dept

Earlier this year, we noted a somewhat ridiculous and cynical attempt by some German newspapers to demand payment from Google for sending them traffic via Google News -- and not just a little bit, but 11% of gross worldwide revenue on any search that showed one of their snippets. There were a few issues that we noted here: first, anyone not wanting to appear in Google News can quite easily opt-out. Second, Google News in Germany doesn't show any ads. Third, those very same newspapers were using Google's own tools to appear higher in search, suggesting that they certainly believed they were getting value out of being in Google's index.

While German regulators rejected this request from the news publication industry group VG Media, Google has now decided to remove all news snippets from VG Media publications. It will still display results from those publications, but only in pure link/title format. Google claims it's doing this to "remove [the] legal risks" from ongoing legal action from VG Media, but it seems equally likely that this will also decrease the traffic to those publishers' websites.

As we've discussed in the past, years back under similar circumstances in Belgium, Google simply removed the complaining publications from its index, only to have those publications freak out and beg to be let back in, exposing the hypocrisy of those publishers, insisting that what Google was doing was somehow unfair.

Indeed, almost immediately, VG Media shot back that this is a form of "blackmail." According to David Meyer at GigaOm:

"Google is discriminating in that they do not show snippets and thumbnails for publishers that made a claim, but they still show snippets and thumbnails from other publishers," he said. "They're trying to [apply] economic pressure."

So... showing the snippets without payment is unfair and infringing. And, not showing the snippets is unfair and blackmail. Someone want to explain how any of this makes any sense other than that it's just petty corporate jealousy that Google has made a lot of money and those publishers want some of it for nothing?

VG Media's spokesperson seems to honestly think that there's some sort of moral requirement for Google to both pay for and show snippets. Again from Meyer:

The spokesman said VG Media was still in talks with the regulator about the case, and would add a complaint about this latest move. But how does this move harm consumers? I asked him. “Because they won’t have quality content in the future” if Google doesn’t pay for the snippets it uses, he claimed.

But surely Google actually helps publishers by sending traffic their way — do the publishers really believe that anyone sees a sentence-or-two-long snippet in Google News and then goes “Eh, that’s enough, I don’t need to click through”?

It's difficult to see how this is anything other than "We failed to develop our own business model, so the company that did ought to just give us money."

Filed Under: blackmail, copyright, germany, google news, search, snippets
Companies: google, vg media

German Regulator Rejects German Newspapers' Cynical Attempt To Demand Cash From Google

from the nice-try-but-no dept

Back in June we wrote about the ridiculous and cynical attempt by a number of big German newspaper publishers, in the form of the industry group VG Media, to demand 11% of Google's gross worldwide revenue on any search that results in Google showing a snippet of their content. We noted the hypocrisy of these publishers seeking to do this while at the same time having done nothing to remove themselves from Google's search -- and, in fact, using Google's tools to help them rank higher in search results. In other words, these publishers know that ranking high helps them... and yet then still demanded cash on top of that.

VG Media had specifically filed an arbitration request with the German government, but it has now been rejected. And, while German regulators didn't go so far as to say they found the claim laughable, they did the regulator-speak equivalent:

“Sufficient suspicion is always necessary to initiate an abuse procedure. The complaint from VG Media did not establish this,” Andreas Mundt, president of Germany’s Federal Cartel Office, said in a statement on Friday.

Those poor, poor newspapers will just have to go back to accepting free traffic from Google, via Google News (a site that doesn't have ads in Germany). Whatever will they do now?

Filed Under: copyright, germany, google news, newspapers, payments, snippets
Companies: google, vg media

German Newspapers Want Google To Pay Them For Appearing In Search Results (Even As They Try To Rank Higher)

from the insanity-offense dept

About four years ago, you may recall, a group of German publishers were absolutely furious at Google for daring to send them traffic. At the time, they more or less admitted that they were just jealous that Google was able to earn revenue:

Hans-Joachim Fuhrmann, a spokesman for the German Newspaper Publishers Association, said the Web sites of all German newspapers and magazines together made 100 million euros, or $143 million, in ad revenue, while Google generated 1.2 billion euros from search advertising in Germany.

"Google says it brings us traffic, but the problem is that Google earns billions, and we earn nothing," Mr. Fuhrmann said.

Of course, as we pointed out at the time, he was comparing apples to oranges. Google earns money from search advertising. And the newspapers earn money from advertising as well, so the claim that the newspapers earn "nothing" is wrong. However, two years later, the publishers convinced the German government to take a stand and claim that showing news snippets and linking to the source somehow required a license. That resulted in a legislative fight, ending last year with a somewhat watered down snippet law that no one was entirely sure applied to Google.

Well, it appears the publishers aren't satisfied with how this has all worked out, because as Jeff Jarvis is pointing out, they've kicked off a legal arbitration process, in which they're demanding 11% of gross worldwide revenue on any search result that includes one of their snippets. This has been filed by the VG Media industry group. This is bizarre on multiple levels, including the fact that if everyone was able to get that, given the "10 blue links" nature of Google, the company would have to pay out over 100% of its search revenue to the very same people they're sending traffic to. That's... ridiculous.

Of course, we've seen all of this before. In nearby Belgium, a bunch of newspapers demanded payment back in 2006, and a court then ordered Google to pay up. When Google, instead, decided to remove those newspapers from its index, the very same Belgian newspapers flipped out and demanded to be let back into Google. Eventually, for reasons that I still don't understand, Google effectively decided to pay off the Belgian newspapers with a promise of vaguely helping them to make money online. I would imagine that the German newspapers are just looking for a similar handout. Same thing as French newspapers.

However, the example of the Belgians both demanding payment, but then also freaking out when they were removed from the index, is instructive. These newspapers receive tremendous benefits from being included in Google: Google sends them a ton of traffic. That's why they got so upset when removed. The problem is that (1) they're apparently bad at monetizing that traffic and (2) they're jealous of Google, thus demanding a pay off of some sort. As Danny Sullivan writes about this latest lawsuit, the true hypocrisy is apparent in the fact that the German newspapers, supposedly so upset about Google listing them without paying, have not only done nothing to remove themselves from Google's index (as can be easily done), but have actually made use of Google's tools to enhance their appearance within Google.

As Sullivan notes, these newspapers aren't being "swept up into Google's results against their wills," but rather appear to be "actively trying to gain more placement and visibility in them." And that's why this move for a cut of the revenue is so ridiculous and cynical. Basically, they're getting an incredibly valuable service from Google for free and are now demanding to get paid for it as well.

Filed Under: germany, newspapers, publishers, search engines, snippets
Companies: google, vg media