El Reg reports
Spain recently revamped its copyright law and the changes take effect (PDF, Spanish) on 1 January. Law-makers threw newspapers a bone: the right to be remunerated by news aggregators.
According to academic Eleonora Rosati, writing at the IP Kat blog, the law is spectacularly clumsy: publishers who want to appear in Google News can't waive the right to a fee.Google responded that, "as Google News itself makes no money (we do not show any advertising on the site) this new approach is simply not sustainable."
[...]Last year, Germany introduced something similar. The "Leistungsschutzrecht für Presseverlege" (or "Lex Google") granted publishers an ancillary right in the German Copyright Act that forbade aggregators from displaying excerpts without paying a fee. Google refused, and made the German Google News "opt in" to avoid paying the fee. Some major magazine and newspaper publishers refused, effectively boycotting the service. Then, one by one, they returned. The final hold-out, giant Axel Springer, finally caved in a month ago.
The following day, TechDirt reported
Surprise: Spanish Newspapers Beg Government And EU To Stop Google News Shutting Down
In a move that will surprise no one--except, perhaps, at how little time it took to happen--the newspapers association is now begging the Spanish government to do something about the damage the new law, which the publishers lobbied for, is about to wreak on the newspaper industry.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by dlb on Wednesday December 17 2014, @03:57AM
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Wednesday December 17 2014, @04:12AM
Seems this also applies to shooting in the foot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday December 17 2014, @12:28PM
Was it the newspapers who were favouring this law, or book publishers?
I can sympathise with book publishers having issue with Google making their stuff freely available (I still don't understand how this isn't considered flagrant copyright infringement), but I don't imagine newspapers would want Google stopped.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday December 18 2014, @01:19PM
What stuff by book publishers does Google make available?
I mean there's some stuff on Google Books, but for anything still under copyright they'll only provide a couple pages. Which in the US falls under fair use -- it's perfectly legal to reproduce a very limited subset of a copyrighted work. Of course, the same is true of Google News, which is probably why blocking it required passing an entirely new law -- Spain must have had something similar to US fair use law, which they just obliterated.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday December 18 2014, @02:48PM
It's possible to access large chunks of a book via Google Books, as although they only show a select few pages at a time, the set of pages shown isn't fixed. You can 'trick' Google Books into showing you more than it's meant to by accessing the book at different times, using different browsers, resetting cookies, etc.
The ability to do this is great for me the reader, in the direct sense, but I can see why a publisher would object.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday December 18 2014, @04:23PM
Wow. I was not aware it did that. Sounds like a rather brilliant legal hack if you ask me. Good way to enable others to commit copyright infringement without technically breaking any laws yourself. I'm pretty sure if you do all that and manage to pull and entire book off of Google's systems, *you* would be the one accused of a crime (circumventing copy protection) rather than Google.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday December 18 2014, @10:12PM
Strongly disagree. Google are facilitating this. They don't have that right. Making large chunks of books available - whether or not it takes some effort to retrieve them - seems indefensible.
In addition: it's clear Google is keeping a lot of that book in its database. What gives them the right to construct that database? I'm not allowed to photocopy half a book. Why should Google be allowed to dump half a book to disk?
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday December 19 2014, @01:28PM
Pretty sure Google gets permission before scanning in the books. And they do have a legitimate reason for doing things the way they do -- they'd like to show you the part of the book that's actually relevant to your search terms. And let's get back to the real world for a second -- who's going to set up a hundred or so virtual machines or browser configurations just to avoid driving down to the library?
But IMO copyright is incompatible with free speech, and free speech should win that battle. Copyright is just an indirect welfare mechanism for artists anyway. If it's really something we need government to be involved in, why not skip the despotic middle-man and just give out grants or something?
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Monday December 22 2014, @05:04PM
Pretty sure Google gets permission before scanning in the books.
Nope. [wikipedia.org]
who's going to set up a hundred or so virtual machines or browser configurations just to avoid driving down to the library?
PhD students are the most obvious example. Obscure technical books that cost an absolute bomb, and for which there is no e-book available (not counting Google Books).
Whether that actually translates to a lost sale, you may well doubt, but the use-case is there. Yes, I've seen this happen in real life. She didn't use virtual-machines though (not that you'd need them to do this properly), just patience.
But IMO copyright is incompatible with free speech, and free speech should win that battle.
The same can be said of laws restricting libel, slander, and inciting violence. Copyright has a place, even if it's currently not the way it should be. (Copyrights *should* expire.)
Copyright is just an indirect welfare mechanism for artists anyway.
Uh... no. Only in the sense that any property rights are welfare...
(Score: 1) by stroucki on Wednesday December 17 2014, @04:17AM
Here in the US, cable companies are compelled to carry free-to-air television channels, and as copyrighted productions, broadcasters can dictate terms for retransmission.
Perhaps we can help the struggling publishing industry by mandating that google link to them, of course at whatever cost the publishers want.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Wednesday December 17 2014, @06:36AM
Um, no. They can EITHER require cable to carry the local OTA channel for free OR negotiate with the cable company on a rate, and if no agreement is reached, the channel is not carried.
(Score: 1) by stroucki on Wednesday December 17 2014, @07:51PM
Right. What it leads to though is cross-subsidization of secondary cable channel, the cost of which is passed to the consumer as part of their cable bill.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday December 17 2014, @04:31AM
Springer said traffic flowing from clicks on Google search results had fallen by 40 percent and traffic delivered via Google News had plummeted by 80 percent in the past two weeks.
The german publisher said this thinking how he was pointing out just how big of a monopoly Google has in the news aggregation business. Instead he proved how tremendously valuable Google was to his company.
Google delivers more than half a billion clicks to German news sites per month. The search company has PAID more than one billion euros in online advertising fees to German media publishers in the last three years.
Yet Springer thought it wise to hold out for some miserly fees for using a two lines summary as a hook to bring traffic to a failing industry. Wow. I never see any ads on Google News, but I sure do when I arrive at any of his sites.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Wednesday December 17 2014, @05:17AM
There are plenty of Spanish-speaking countries. This isn't going to change anything other than dip into Spanish publishers' revenues.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday December 17 2014, @05:51AM
No. . . habla.... Espanol? So not only is there no news coming out of Spain, now we will not even be able to find out about it! (Wait! Brilliant! Reporting the absence of news cannot be news, and so cannot be copyrighted under Spanish law? I , for one, welcome our new non-news Spanish overlords!)
(Score: 2, Troll) by hoochiecoochieman on Wednesday December 17 2014, @11:15AM
It's not that I disagree with the title, but I disagree with being opinative when submitting stories. When I read those kinds of titles, I can't help but feel a chill telling me "bullshit". It reminds me of lousy media, like tabloid papers.
Please, let's keep the standard high and try to be more objective.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday December 17 2014, @09:31PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 18 2014, @12:12AM
I agree with you. Good journalism has no room for adjectives, specially derogatory ones such as "ridiculous".
However, let this be the exception. I have to agree with janrinok on this news - everything is ridiculous, starting at the abrupt change "We want money from Google News / We no longer want money from Google News".
Update: I'm told Google News Spain closed on december 16.
Greetings from Spain.-Ignacio Agulló.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday December 18 2014, @07:37AM
So no reporting on nuclear energy, fossil fuels or renewable energy? No articles about violent protests or peaceful demonstrations? No news about controversal decisions? Heck, you couldn't even write about good journalism!
I agree with you about the use of "ridiculous". I don't agree about your more general claim.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 18 2014, @04:34PM
Haha, funny. Also, colours are adjectives, so they shouldn't be used either.
I still have a point, tough.-Ignacio Agulló