[LIS-Forum] Spain Likely To Pass 'Google Tax'; Makes Paying For News Snippets An 'Inalienable Right' And A New Bureaucracy To Collect It | Techdirt

Padmanabha Vyasamoorthy vyasamoorthy at gmail.com
Fri Aug 1 07:36:04 IST 2014


​CAN some explain in simple terms what this all means? Vyasamoorthy
==================================================​

Spain Likely To Pass 'Google Tax'; Makes Paying For News Snippets An
'Inalienable Right' And A New Bureaucracy To Collect It
from the yikes dept
We've covered a few attempts in Europe to create what appears to basically
be a tax on Google News for newspapers. These newspapers, who have been
struggling to adapt in the modern internet world would like to blame Google
News for their own failures, despite the fact that Google sends them
traffic. When a court case in Belgium was won by the newspapers, Google
simply removed those newspapers from the local Google News... and those
very same newspapers freaked out and demanded to be let back in. This, of
course, demonstrates the vast hypocrisy by the newspapers here. They know
they need to be in Google News because of all the traffic it drives, but
they also demand to be paid for it. Google has made it quite easy for
newspapers to opt-out of Google News if they really feel like their work is
somehow harmed by having Google link to it -- but none of the newspapers
use it, because they know how valuable the traffic is. In fact, many of the
same newspapers who are complaining are, at the same time, using Google's
own tools to improve how they appear in results.

Efforts like the ones in Belgium have happened in France and in Germany,
where a new law was passed last year. That law had some loopholes, so now
German newspapers are demanding a huge chunk of money from Google.

But the situation over in Spain just got even more ridiculous. Julio Alonso
has the details, in which it appears that the lower house of the Spanish
legislature has approved a very, very dangerous bill that creates a brand
new inalienable right for news publishers to be paid for, via compulsory
licenses, any "electronic news aggregation system," which is broadly
defined as anyone who shares more than just anchor text with a link. A
short summary? You'll have to pay up:
The Spanish law proposal declares that editors cannot refuse the use of
“non-significant fragments of their articles” by third parties. However, it
creates a levy on such use to compensate editors and declares it an
inalienable right (derecho irrenunciable).

The introduction of the inalienable right was done to avoid what happened
in Germany. If you are a digital editor that publishes with a copyleft
license, like myself, and you minimally understand how the internet
actually works, you cannot decide to not charge Google News. It is
compulsory. More than a right it is an obligation. Therefore, Google cannot
exclude sites requiring payment from Google News. It would still need to
pay for those it includes, even if they do not want to be compensated.

Furthermore, such tax, is to be administered by a third party (entidad de
gestión) in a similar way to what SGAE (the Spanish RIAA) does with music
rights. In this case most likely CEDRO (the entity that collects fees for
the use of written text, photocopies and so on). How much it is to be paid
and how the proceedings would be split among editors has not being
disclosed. Though there is reason to suspect of a distribution just to AEDE
members.

To make things even worse, the tax is not even aimed only at Google. It is
aimed generally at “electronic news aggregation systems”, and, therefore it
includes basically anyone who links with anything more than an anchor text.
It seems worth noting here that collection societies around the globe have
been plagued with corruption and other problems, often diverting money from
smaller creators to the biggest. And, some of the worst stories come from
Spain, where SGAE was accused of mass corruption, involving stealing $550
million from artists. That doesn't bode well for this new "organization."

As Alonso notes, this isn't just directed at Google News, but Menéame, a
popular Digg/Reddit-like aggregator in Spain (randomly: we get a fair
amount of traffic from that site). But it could also impact Twitter and
Facebook where people share links with text. And also a variety of other
aggregators like Flipboard, Zite and Pocket.

The fact that it's considered "inalienable" is especially troubling. It
basically overrides any concept of fair use, Creative Commons or even
public domain material. Furthermore, Alonso notes that a bunch of
organizations, including a bunch of other newspapers, are fighting against
this, but it didn't seem to matter. A report has warned that implementing
this law could cost the Spanish internet industry over a billion euros, and
sites like Menéame are already talking about leaving the country. There are
rumors that Google might just shut down Google News in Spain over this.
But, still, the legislation was pushed through under questionable
circumstances:
The law was passed on Congress in a special session in the mid of summer,
on the Culture Committee and not on the plenary session, with almost no
debate in a very awkward session, with many Congressmen declaring to the
press, sometimes unintentionally, that they knew very little about what
they were voting.
Despite widespread public and industry (outside the largest Spanish
newspapers) opposition to this, Alonso suggests that the bill is still
likely to become law. And we'll have yet another disastrous policy for the
internet, designed to protect the industry of a few legacy players who
failed to adapt.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140728/06561628035/spain-likely-to-pass-google-tax-makes-paying-news-snippets-inalienable-right-new-bureaucracy-to-collect-it.shtml

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