Push Resumes For An EU Google Tax, With The Bulgarian Government Leading The Way

from the bad-ideas-never-die dept

When an idea fails, legislators resurrect it. The problem must not be with the idea, they reason. It must be with the implementation. So it goes in Europe, where the Bulgarian government is trying to push an idea that has demonstrably failed elsewhere on the continent.

Should the EU introduce an extra copyright for news sites, restricting how we can share news online? The controversy around this plan continues to brew – this time in the Council, where the member state governments are trying to find a consensus.

[...]

The Bulgarian Council Presidency is pushing what it calls a new compromise, instead of the choice of two options that their Estonian predecessors offered.

But upon closer investigation, the “compromise” looks mighty familiar: With exceptions for very short snippets and non-commercial use by individuals, as well as a shorter protection term than the Commission wanted, it looks much like the current German “ancillary copyright”, which almost all experts agree has been an abject failure.

The failure of snippet taxes/Google taxes is well documented, but never seems to deter further legislative efforts in the same direction. Google reacted to the initiative by dropping snippets from German news agencies, a move that produced a noticeable drop in traffic. German publishers called it "blackmail," but the simplest way to comply with bad laws is to opt out. Similar things happened in Spain with its snippet tax. Google nuked its local Google News service, resulting in affected publishers demanding the government force Google to re-open the service and start sending them traffic/money.

This push in the EU Commission for a snippet tax deliberately ignores research showing link taxes don't work, harm publishers, and are opposed by many of the journalists who would supposedly benefit from it. This is more than cherry-picking facts to support a Google tax. Pirate Party EU Parliament member Julia Reda (who wrote the post quoted above) previously uncovered reports the Commission tried to bury, including one that showed news aggregation services like Google News were a net benefit for listed publications.

At this point, it looks as though some form of snippet tax will eventually become EU law. Only half of the member countries oppose snippet taxes, and only a few of those are actively fighting the proposal. If it does become law, it won't work out the way publishers believe it will. Instead, it will harm smaller publishers and smaller aggregators, resulting in a consolidation of power for the largest publishers and platforms. The EU has no leverage in this battle. Google won't hang around for long if the situation is unprofitable and publishers will have to settle for taxing Yahoo, Bing, etc. for whatever traffic these search engines manage to send their way.

Filed Under: aggregators, bad ideas, bulgaria, copyright, eu, google tax, link tax, neighboring rights, snippet tax

EU Commission Hid Yet Another Report That Showed Its Assumptions About Copyright Were Wrong

from the evidence-based-policymaking dept

For many years we've criticized copyright policymakers who rely on "faith-based" policymaking. That is, they believe that copyright is inherently "good" and refuse to consider any evidence showing harms from copyright that is too strong, or refuse to concede that there may be better ways to create incentives or to remunerate creators beyond copyright. The idea of actually having evidence-based copyright has long seemed like a pipedream -- and apparently the EU Commission would like to keep it that way. Back in September, we wrote about how the EU Commission spent $400,000 on a study that showed unauthorized downloads had little impact on sales -- and then refused to release the report, recognizing that it would undermine the narrative they were pushing in trying to expand anti-piracy laws.

And, now, another such "buried" report has been discovered. As with the last one, this new report was discovered by Pirate Party EU Parliament Member Julia Reda, though she used the standard EU Freedom of Information process that anyone else could have used. After discovering that last report, she made a request for all copyright related studies that the EU Commission had requested since 2013, even if they were unpublished. That initial request listed out some papers that were still in progress -- including the one that Reda has now released. This study is one that a lot of news publishers almost certainly wished would have never seen the light of day -- which might explain why the EU Commission kept it buried.

The report focuses on the question of news aggregators and what impact they're having on news publishers. As you may recall, publishers around the globe -- but especially in Europe -- have been insisting that aggregators like Google News are somehow responsible for their own business failures, and are demanding that Google pay them for the awful crime of sending them traffic. The fact that these publishers could easily block Google from sending them traffic -- but refuse to do so -- reveals that they really do find that traffic valuable. But they still want payments on top of it, and will continue to demonize Google News and other aggregators until they get it. And, indeed, the EU Commission continues to suggest that forcing aggregators to pay publishers would be a good idea.

But, perhaps not surprisingly, the study that the Commission requested shows the exact opposite of what the publishers claim. Looking at situations in Spain and Germany -- both countries that tried to force Google to pay -- gives some real world evidence that is inconvenient for publishers and those pushing for these kinds of laws:

The available empirical evidence shows that news aggregators have a positive impact on news publishers' advertising revenue.

The research goes through a number of different empirical studies to conclude this. It notes that there are two competing forces, and the empirical question is which force wins out. News publishers insist that aggregators work as a substitute for their sites, while aggregators (and others!) insist that they're complementary, and that news aggregators drive more traffic, which the publishers can then monetize. It then cites a whole bunch of studies presenting empirical evidence that the complementary effects far outweigh the substitution effects. As the paper concludes:

We can conclude from this overview that the studies published so far contain no empirical evidence in support of the substitution hypothesis and thus no evidence that online aggregators have a negative impact on original newspaper publishers' revenue. On the contrary, the evidence shows that aggregators may actually be complements to newspaper websites and may help consumer discover more news and boost the number of visits.

All of this seems like, damn, it would be kind of useful if you were trying to create good copyright policy. But instead the report was completely buried and hidden, while the EU Commission to this day continues to push for policies that insist the substitution effect is stronger than the complementary effect. Even though the evidence that the very same Commission asked for shows that's untrue.

So, once again, it's feeling like evidence-based copyright remains a pipedream. What's unfortunate, though, is that in the past we felt it was a pipedream because no one was willing to do the research. Now it appears it's a pipedream because policymakers, when shown the evidence, will do everything possible to hide it, rather than to use it to create more effective and reasonable copyright laws.

Filed Under: aggregators, copyright, eu commission, google tax, julia reda, link tax, news, news aggregators, snippet tax

European News Agencies Again Demand Google, Facebook, Etc. Pay Up For Sending Them Traffic

from the definition-of-insanity dept

Because it's worked oh so well in the past, European news agencies are (again!) calling for service providers like Google and Facebook to start paying them money for sending them business.

Nine European press agencies, including AFP, called Wednesday on internet giants to be forced to pay copyright for using news content on which they make vast profits.

The call comes as the EU is debating a directive to make Facebook, Google, Twitter and other major players pay for the millions of news articles they use or link to.

"Facebook has become the biggest media in the world," the agencies said in a plea published in the French daily Le Monde.

"Yet neither Facebook nor Google have a newsroom... They do not have journalists in Syria risking their lives, nor a bureau in Zimbabwe investigating Mugabe's departure, nor editors to check and verify information sent in by reporters on the ground."

"Access to free information is supposedly one of the great victories of the internet. But it is a myth," the agencies argued.

"At the end of the chain, informing the public costs a lot of money."

This is a doomed idea. First off, if the demands are a pain to implement, news agencies can expect to start seeing referral traffic drop as other news sources not tied to payment demands see their search engine stock rise. If they continue to press for a cut of these companies "billions," they can expect to be cut off completely. This isn't hypothetical.

Second, any agency that wants to cut off the search engines supposedly bleeding them dry can always block the engines' crawlers. But this obviously isn't about killing off search engine hits and Facebook sharing -- it's about dipping a hand into pockets of service providers for having the audacity to expand the reach of European news agencies.

Finally, there's nothing in it for news agencies even if they succeed in getting a snippet tax implemented. They see companies worth billions and think skimming a little off the top will put them back in the black permanently. But anyone who knows anything about ad payouts knows CPM "taxes" aren't the road to riches. In reality, any implemented scheme would involve hundreds of news sites divvying up fractions of cents between themselves for search result impressions. Payouts might be slightly higher for more direct clicks from referrers like Facebook, but at best, new agencies should expect a few bucks a month from a link tax, rather than the thousands (or millions) they envision.

The news agencies supporting this move are complaining about declining ad revenue and think charging platforms for sending them traffic is the solution. This has been tried and it hasn't worked, but hope springs eternal when you're all out of innovative ideas.

Filed Under: aggregators, eu, europe, google tax, linking, news, newspapers, reporting, search engines, snippet tax

First And Only Snippet Tax Deal In Spain Is With Big Supporter Of Snippet Tax In Germany

from the maybe-just-a-coincidence dept

Two years ago, Techdirt wrote about an industry study of Spain's "Google tax", which requires a Web site to pay for sending traffic to publishers when it quotes snippets of their texts. Just as everyone who actually understands the Internet predicted, Spain's new law had a disastrous effect on the publishing industry there, especially on smaller companies. Despite that unequivocal evidence, the law is still in place, and it's a further sign of how pointless it is that only now has the Spanish Center for Reprographic Rights (Cedro) finally managed to sign up its first deal with a news aggregator, called Upday (original in Spanish). Cedro is claiming that this "pioneering" move possesses a "strategic importance" because it recognizes the rights of those whose publications appear elsewhere as snippets.

The fact that it has taken so long to find anyone willing to accept that point is bad enough, but it gets worse. Upday operates across Europe, and was launched in Spain at the beginning of March this year. It turns out to be a partnership between Axel Springer and Samsung. As Techdirt readers may recall, the giant publishing group Axel Springer is one of the biggest supporters of the Google tax in Germany. Initially, it tried to take a hard line against the US search company. But Axel Springer was soon forced to back down humiliatingly and offer Google a free license to post snippets from its publications. A two-week experiment without search engine leads caused Web traffic to Axel Springer's sites to plunge.

So, far from being a "pioneering" move that validates the whole snippet tax approach in Spain, Upday's deal with Cedro is simply a key German supporter of this daft idea trying to give the impression that the moribund Spanish Google tax is still twitching somewhat. It's pretty clear why Axel Springer and Cedro would be keen to do that now, after years of nothing happening in Spain. The European Union is currently revising the main EU Copyright Directive. Article 11 of the proposed text is an EU-wide version of the snippet tax, despite the fact that the idea has failed miserably everywhere that it has been tried. The agreement between Upday and Cedro will presumably be used as "evidence" that the Google tax is "working" in Spain. The fact that it is a "circular" deal between German and Spanish supporters of the idea proves the exact contrary.

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Filed Under: germany, google tax, link tax, snippet tax, spain
Companies: axel springer, google

EU Copyright Proposal: Not Good, But Not As Blatantly Terrible As It Could Have Been

from the yes,-but...-how-about-doing-it-right? dept

We recently warned that there were efforts underway to make the EU's copyright reform proposal even more draconian and ridiculous. Thankfully, the "compromise," which wasn't a compromise at all and would have made things much worse, was rejected by the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) committee, but there was still plenty of bad stuff to be concerned about.

The mandatory filtering (i.e., mandatory censorship) regime for internet platforms was rejected. That's a good thing. But, on the flip side, the so-called "link tax" requiring payments from those who link to and aggregate news to news publishers has moved forward. Two other small bits of good news were also included: the "freedom of panorama" allowing people to photograph buildings and sculptures without violating someone's copyright and also a "remix right" that will protect the public from doing basic remixing of copyright-covered works. There are still concerns about the "text and data mining" rules which limit what content can be acquired.

So, basically, it's a mixed bag. Some, of course, will argue that any "compromise" will involve some good and some bad, but that assumes that we need a compromise here. Why not aim for creating a policy that's actually better overall, rather than a "compromise" solution? Europe has the chance to lead the way, but appears to have little interest in doing so. Either way, there's still more to go in this process, and other committees to approve things, so the policy still has a long way to go. Hopefully, by the end it pushes more and more to being true copyright reform, rather than just "propping up old industries" reform.

Filed Under: copyright, data mining, eu, eu parliament, filters, google tax, link tax, remix right

EU Parliament Dumps Link Tax, Invites News Publishers To Sue If They Think Google's Making Them Broke

from the won't-hold-my-breath-for-production-of-evidence dept

Last summer, Mike reported the EU Commission was about to institute a "link tax" on news snippets. In essence, the tax would have punished search engines for sending traffic TO news sites. Not only is that part of it a stupid, backwards idea, but previous attempts by European countries to institute link/Google taxes were abject failures, resulting in Google refusing to list taxed news articles in its search results.

Readers were invited to comment on the proposed tax. It's not clear whether those comments were heard above the overly-confident dull roar of industry lobbyists, but whatever the turning point was, the link tax idea is dead. What's being offered to publishers is something completely different: an opportunity to sue Google, et al for supposed infringement.

The decision by copyright rapporteur and European People’s Party MEP Therese Comodini Cachia is a mixed result for European publishers, who had lobbied for legislation allowing them to charge companies like Google and Yahoo when they display parts of their articles, including headlines and snippets.

While the proposed measure falls short of that ambition, it would create a legal channel through which publishers would be able to attempt to enforce their claims. “Press publishers are given the right to bring proceedings in their own name before tribunals against infringers of the rights held by the authors of the works contained in their press publication,” reads the report.

Say goodbye to ancillary rights and hello to pointless litigation. The latter is the better idea, though. This puts the burden on news agencies to show they've been harmed by increased referral traffic. This proposal isn't making many European publishers happy.

“Comodini’s draft report fails to deliver for press publishers,” said Wout van Wijk, executive director of industry association News Media Europe. “All that this will potentially do is lead to more litigation.”

Publishers don't have to sue. It's not mandatory. They could just sit back and enjoy the additional traffic. As the EU Parliament points out in its proposal, Google's news snippets aren't "necessarily disproportionately harmful" to publishers and may very well increase traffic to their sites and provide them with new subscribers. It's pretty much impossible to present evidence of harm when there's no evidence to be had. The whole "link tax" idea rests on publishers' unfounded claims Google, etc. are responsible for the financial woes of the continent's new agencies. There are multiple factors to consider, but publishers seem to focus solely on Google, as if news publishers and Google were engaged in a zero sum profitability game.

The report also points out a link tax might have a chilling effect on thousands of citizens who have nothing to do with the search engine giant. Its report notes the non-commercial sharing of links is an important part of societal communication and levying a tax on sharing is no way to encourage speech. Shifting the burden of proof to publishers challenges them to put their theoretically "lost" money where their mouths are… which is the way it should be.

Filed Under: ancillary copyright, eu, eu parliament, google tax, link tax, platforms, publishers
Companies: google

European News Publishers Still Believe They Have The Right To Make Google Pay For Sending Traffic Their Way

from the bad-arguments-and-bad-laws dept

The European Commission is still (slowly) moving forward with its plan to dump a link tax on service providers like Google, Facebook, etc. in hopes of propping up local news outfits. The plan has been in the works for a couple of years now and it's looking like the longer the planning goes on, the less likely it is to result in something that makes its advocates happy.

A long report from Politico details the current state of this doomed venture. And it is doomed. Even if implemented in a way that makes news outlets happiest, the end result will be less incoming traffic from some of the most-used sites in the world. Some news agencies aren't so sure this is the way forward.

“Other stakeholders are challenging the provision … questioning not only whether this is the best way of addressing concerns of press publishers vis-a-vis digital technologies, but also questioning whether the Commission proposal is adequately restricted to such concerns,” Therese Comodini Cachia, the Maltese rapporteur shepherding the proposal through Parliament, told POLITICO.

Translation: Opponents of the plan, including some small web publishers, worry it could choke traffic to their sites by creating a thicket of regulations that will dissuade Google and other platforms from driving users to them. These critics also argue that a publisher’s right will create a “link tax” (a phrase that supporters liken to a slur) but won’t achieve its backers’ main aim: to save the news sector’s broken business model.

That's the problem with short-sighted legislation like this: it fails to consider the options available to those hit with the link tax. And it's not as though there's no information available that indicates what the future would hold for supposed beneficiaries of the link tax. Past efforts in Spain and Belgium to institute a link tax (targeting Google) resulted in the search engine pulling out of the market by dumping any search results that might have resulted in tax liability.

Then there are the numerous ways it might affect the average computer user -- beyond finding fewer local articles on Facebook or fewer search results when Googling.

The plan’s loudest critic has been Green MEP Julia Reda. Originally elected as a member of the Pirate party, Reda’s encyclopedic knowledge of copyright has made her a respected adversary for the publishers. She’s shown a particular knack for condensing the legalese of copyright reform into alarmist soundbites. She has argued, for example, that the Commission proposal could affect how articles are shared on Twitter, something both the Commission and the publishers deny.

As is to be expected, the lack of forward progress is being blamed on Google. Proponents of the link tax are complaining about Google's lobbying efforts in Europe, as though the company should do nothing more than sit down, shut up, and start paying FOR DRIVING TRAFFIC TO THEIR WEBSITES.

Opponents of the tax say it's not up to the EC to force other companies to prop up struggling businesses. Those advocating for the tax say it's not up to the EC to question the soundness of their business decisions. It's about ownership… or so they claim.

The publishers counter that it’s not up to Parliament to analyze the merits of their commercial strategy. What’s at issue is a basic question of ownership, and the publishers say it is incumbent on legislators to protect their rights. In the pre-digital age, such protections weren’t necessary because news content didn’t fall victim to large-scale piracy. The internet, the publishers argue, has changed that because articles can be disseminated far and wide with a few clicks.

This attitude speaks directly to the concerns raised by Green MEP Julia Reda. The publishers view sharing as piracy -- a view not shared at all by millions of people who post links on social media and, again, help drive traffic to the sites. Very few people share news articles by taking entire posts and redistributing them through third parties. And Google -- the top target in the proposed legislation -- does nothing remotely approaching this bizarre definition of piracy with its links to sources and small snippets of article text.

That disconnect between what publishers feel is "right" and what the rest of the world believes is acceptable is yet another nail in this legislation's coffin. Even if it passes, it won't do what publishers hope it will. Google will stop linking to European content. People will find less and less local content being shared. And for all the complaining about Google's lobbying efforts, publishers have no problem touting their own as a reason the terrible proposed legislation might one day become law.

Despite the skepticism, the publishing lobby remains sanguine, confident that its deep political connections will ultimately see the legislation through.

“The news media sector is optimistic that policymakers agree on the need for a publishers’ right,” said Wout van Wijk, executive director of News Media Europe, a lobbyist for press publishers. “Such a right will create the legal certainty needed for further investments and innovation to guarantee a free and pluralistic media landscape in Europe.”

Granting this right won't fix publishers' problems. It might give them more ways to sue, but flagging new agencies can't be legislated back into fiscal health -- especially if it means levying taxes on US companies to prop up European entities. In the end, publishers may get what they THINK they want, but they won't be seeing any return on the lobbying investment. Anything that discourages the free (as in "open") dissemination of information tends to work out worst for those compiling the information. A link tax is just a band-aid to be applied to the internet's surface, unable to staunch the blood flow of the new publishing industry's internal wounds.

Filed Under: ancillary copyright, copyright, eu, google tax, news snippets
Companies: google

Struggling Canadian News Agencies Ask Government For A 'Google Tax'

from the loads-gun,-points-at-foot dept

It never fails (although the proposed solution often does): when faced with the struggles of operating news organizations in the internet era, far too many industry leaders suggest someone else should pay for their failing business models.

The favorite target is Google. Google has somehow destroyed the profitability of news media companies by creating an incredibly successful search engine. Even though its search engine directs users to news agencies' websites, there are those in the industry that believe incoming traffic isn't enough to offset their perception that the search engine somehow piggybacks off their success, rather than the other way around.

So-called "Google taxes" have been passed into law in countries around the world. In every case, they've been a disaster. In Spain, new agencies begged to have the law rolled back after losing traffic from Google searches. Having seen what didn't work in Spain, Austrian lawmakers floated the same idea, proposing a tax on SINGLE WORDS in search results. The latest bad idea is an EU-wide "snippet tax," because it worked so well in Spain, Spanish newspapers begged the EU to step in and block Google from killing its news article search results in Spain in response to the proposed tax.

With all of this data to go on, you'd think the idea would be dead. But it isn't. The EU wants to spread its stupidity across several countries. Meanwhile in Canada, a meeting of minds over the fate of Canadian media companies has culminated in the same exact aneurysm.

Tax changes, better copyright protection and fees imposed on Facebook and Google are among the solutions being touted to help rescue Canada's ailing news industry, internal reports show.

Those suggestions were prominent in closed-door sessions with news leaders conducted by the Public Policy Forum, a think-tank the federal government has hired to suggest policies in support of Canadian journalism during a period of digital disruption and reporter layoffs.

So, there's also a "Facebook tax" proposal, one that originates from the country's ongoing efforts to support local creations and content. Those pushing a form of Google tax are suggesting this would be no different than the government's levying of fees on cable companies whose programming didn't contain enough Canadian-made content.

"Perhaps this could be [a] concept … applied in the digital space, establishing charges on news aggregators and foreign content producers such as Facebook, Google, Netflix and National Newswatch to subsidize made-in-Canada content."

Perhaps. It's definitely a "concept" and one that could be "applied" to digital space… but only if the Canadian government wishes to see foreign content producers pull out of the Canadian market. (And, as the CBC notes, the think tank quoted doesn't appear to know that National Newswatch is actually a Canadian media company. That kind of "thinking" is going to get in the way of itself if these are the minds crafting new media policies.)

And there's really no explanation for this:

"Canadian policy-makers should consider whether copyright laws that govern file-sharing in the music industry could be applied in the news industry," with some arguing for a 24-hour period of exclusivity.

Exclusivity is impossible to guarantee on the internet, so unless the legislature is willing to criminalize this form of… I don't know, infringement(?), then there's little that can be done to guarantee 24 hours of exclusivity to any media company. Not only that, but the web is world-wide, and Canadians are free to bring their eyeballs and clicks to foreign sites not subject to any ridiculous 24-hour exclusivity "rights."

As for the file-sharing, I don't even know where to start. Are newspapers going to sue readers for sharing paywalled content or posting links to Facebook? Is unauthorized consumption of news the new piracy?

Better suggestions are made elsewhere in the report, although these still rely on taxing others to prop up struggling industries.

Change tax rules to allow philanthropic support of journalism by charitable or non-profit foundations. "Under existing rules, it becomes difficult to establish the type of independent, non-profit news model that has proven so successful in the United States through ProPublica," says the interim report.

Create tax incentives and exemptions to encourage coverage of local news. Investors, for example, could get special tax credits for putting money into local, non-profit digital news startups.

Review the role of the government-financed CBC, which has moved into digital news space and — according to some publishers — has undermined the private sector's abilities to attract ad dollars. (The CBC has since proposed that it abandon all advertising, relying solely on increased public funding.)

In every case, there's a look to Canadian citizens' pocketbooks to subsidize media entities that, for whatever reason, Canadians haven't felt like supporting directly.

This is still in its discussion phase, but the summary report points to a lot of bad ideas bubbling to the top. If Canada wants to turn news media into government-subsidized industries, it's going to do at least as much damage to the quality of reporting as their current financial struggles. Any perception of indebtedness to the government will work against these agencies, undermining their reporting and creating doubts of impartiality in the minds of their readers.

As for the various taxes of US companies to subsidize falling Canadian newspapers sales, hopefully a longer look at the proposals will reveal the unintended negative consequences of these plans before both Canadians and Canadian media companies pay the belated price for their short-term thinking.

Filed Under: business models, canada, google tax, news, snippets

Leaked EU Copyright Proposal A Complete Mess: Want To Tax Google To Prop Up Failing Publishers

from the that's-not-the-role-of-copyright dept

Well, here we go again with the bad EU copyright proposals. Just a few days ago, Mozilla actually launched a petition to call on the EU to update its copyright laws for the 21st century, to make it "so we can tinker, create, share, and learn on the internet." Apparently the EU's answer to this is "Fuck You!"

According to a leaked draft of the EU Commission's plan to "modernize" copyright, the plan really seems focused on coming up with new ways to tax successful internet companies, like Google, to prop up other companies and industries that have failed to adapt. Apparently, the EU Commission thinks that copyright should be a tool to punish innovation and to reward those who have refused to innovate.

The leaked draft talks repeatedly about this silly idea of a "value gap." Just a few weeks ago we discussed why the "value gap" is a misleading talking point. It's being used by companies that didn't innovate to try to guarantee a business model, with that model being "have the government force successful companies to subsidize us, because we didn't adapt to the current market." And this draft is full of that kind of thinking.

The draft also continues to weigh "the impact" of various proposals on different stake holders. For example, it notes whether different proposals will have a "positive, neutral, or negative" impact on rightsholders, internet services, consumers and "fundamental rights." While it's nice that they include the "fundamental rights" (and the public -- who, it should be noted, are more than just "consumers") it feels like they're trying to set up proposals again that are sort of "balancing" all of these interests, rather than finding the one that maximizes overall utility. In fact, it's quite troubling that they seem to think that anything that directly expands copyright automatically benefits "rightsholders." We've seen how that's not true at all. Greater freedom to remix, reuse and build on the works of others allow everyday people to become creators themselves more easily. And saddling internet platforms also harms many, many content creators who are only able to create, publicize, distribute, connect and monetize because of these new platforms. But the draft doesn't seem to take much of that into account -- or sort of hand-waves it away.

Even the way the draft describes "problems" show that it's biased at looking for ways to prop up old industries:

In particular intervention at EU level is expected, because of its scale, to strengthen publishers bargaining powers in a more effective way than it has happened under national measures such as the "ancillary rights" adopted in DE and ES, where major online service providers either closed down their news aggregation services (ES) or concluded free licences for the use of publishers' content (DE) which did not generate any remuneration for publishers so far. Moreover the related right granted to press publishers under this option would be different from the ES law insofar as it would be an exclusive right and not an unwaivable compensation: this would leave news publishers a greater margin for manoeuvre to negotiate different types of agreements with service providers and is therefore expected to be more effective for them in the long run (notably as it will allow press publishers to develop new business models in a flexible way).

Basically, so much is looking at how can we prop up newspaper businesses by basically forcing Google to pay them to link to them. Even more ridiculously, the report says that basically pushing Google to pay to link to news will "benefit consumers" because it will mean more "high quality" news. That seems like a dubious assumption.

Consumers reap considerable benefits from news aggregators and social media news providers. At the same time they also benefit from high quality newspaper content feeding these channels of consumption. By fostering the production of high quality news content, this option is expected to have a positive impact on consumers. Better market conditions for the news publishing industry could give rise to the development of innovative offers for the digital distribution of news content, with larger catalogues and more choice. Digital subscription of newspapers and magazines are expected to be further developed, which will be particularly beneficial to consumers given the decline of print products.

That seems like the EU Commission is only thinking a single step out, and not any further about how business models may develop. Doing this will also lock in Google as the dominant player and not allow newer, better, more innovative startups to enter the market without first having to raise significant amounts of capital. The report notes that consumer groups disagree with the assumption that consumers will benefit under such a plan, but the entirety of the Commissions reason for this is "well, this is different from the Spanish law that made Google News shut down."

All in all, this looks like (unfortunately typical for Europe) plan written by bureaucrats looking to basically minimize the number of people who are upset, rather than creating the best actual overall plan. As a result, the proposals look to be a mess, that will almost certainly harm innovation and creativity in Europe.

Filed Under: ancillary copyright, copyright, copyright reform, eu, google tax, publishers

French Politicians Want To Create Ancillary Copyright In Thumbnail Images

from the make-your-views-known dept

Despite the fact that copyright has been repeatedly extended and strengthened over the years, the thought never seems to cross publishers' minds that they could ever have too much of it, or that the public might have some countervailing rights here. As a consequence of this insatiable appetite, there have been a number of recent moves to create an ancillary copyright, also known as a "snippet tax," "link tax" and "Google tax," since it aims to make it obligatory to pay for making even short excerpts or linking to copyright material -- for example, in search results. Rather amazingly, publishers are still pushing for this new monopoly "right" despite abundant evidence from their own research that it harms their businesses.

Undeterred by these facts, some politicians in France are pushing for the creation of yet another kind of ancillary copyright, covering thumbnail images. That idea was squashed a long time ago in the US, but as the public domain advocacy group Comunia explains, in France, the following is still a real possibility:

A new right that would require search engines and indexing services to pay royalties for the use of thumbnail images of copyright protected works. According to French proposal, which has been approved by the French Senate, this new right would be managed by one or more collecting societies, regardless of the intention of the rightholders whether to be financially compensated for the use of their works by search engines.

In an open letter to the French Minister of Culture (pdf) Comunia explains why this is a really stupid idea:

Its scope will impact many online services and mobile apps, from search engines to creative commons models and [the online cultural collection] Europeana. Money would be collected arbitrarily and without any realistic way of redistributing it accurately. Basic, every day activities of online users, such as posting, linking, embedding photos online, would be subject to a cloud of legal uncertainty.

It would isolate France in the European Union, at a time when courts across Europe have made clear these were lawful activities under national, European and international laws. It would isolate France globally, as a country where using images online would be subject to restrictive and unworkable practice.

Unfortunately, France isn't the only part of Europe that is considering the introduction of ancillary copyright. This week, the European Commission launched a public consultation on the idea of giving publishers what it calls "neighbouring rights" -- in other words, ancillary copyright:

[The European Commission] is seeking views on the role of publishers in the copyright value chain, including the possible extension to publishers of the neighbouring rights. Publishers do not currently benefit from neighbouring rights which are similar to copyright but do not reward an authors' original creation (a work). They reward either the performance of a work (e.g. by a musician, a singer, an actor) or an organisational or financial effort (for example by a producer) which may also include a participation in the creative process.

The European Commission paints European publishers as somehow missing out on the ancillary copyright currently enjoyed by those in the music or theatre worlds. The intention is clearly to suggest that this kind of extra right is perfectly normal, and that it should -- of course -- be granted to those poor, struggling publishers, who barely have any copyright at all, apparently. However, that framing rather skates over the fact that posting an article on a website is hardly a creative act on a par with performing a song, or appearing in a play. So it's not entirely clear why the European Commission thinks it deserves an extra layer of legal protection on top of standard copyright -- other than the fact that publishers want that new monopoly in the hope of extracting money from Google.

Fortunately, the consultation is open to everyone, including those outside the EU, which means Techdirt readers everywhere can make their views known using the online questionnaire. As a bonus, you can also give your views on the so-called "panorama exception" -- another area where lobbyists are working hard to make copyright even less fit for the digital age than it is now.

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Filed Under: ancillary copyright, copyright, europe, fair use, france, google tax, thumbnails