Slashdot Mirror
German Publishers Want Monopoly On Sentences
Glyn Moody writes "You think copyright can't get any more draconian? Think again. In Germany, newspaper publishers are lobbying for 'a new exclusive right conferring the power to monopolize speech e.g. by assigning a right to re-use a particular wording in the headline of a news article anywhere else without the permission of the rights holder. According to the drafts circulating on the Internet, permission shall be obtainable exclusively by closing an agreement with a new collecting society which will be founded after the drafts have matured into law. Depending on the particulars, new levies might come up for each and every user of a PC, at least if the computer is used in a company for commercial purposes.' Think that will never work because someone will always break the news cartel? Don't worry, they've got that covered too. They want to 'amend cartel law in order to enable a global "pooling" of all exclusive rights of all newspaper publishers in Germany in order to block any attempt to defect from the paywall cartel by a single competitor.' And rest assured, if anything like this passes in Germany, publishers everywhere will be using the copyright ratchet to obtain 'parity.'"
They're specifically looking to monopolize the wordings in online "newspapers", while at the same time trying hard not to extend the scope to anything but their own publications. It's aimed at Google et al. I for one hope that Google will not license the snippets and headlines but instead remove all German newspaper URLs from the index.
This is to inform you that the headline
"German Publishers Want Monopoly On Sentences"
infringes on our trademark, Monopoly. Please refrain from using this word in your headlines, or contact us for licensing arrangements. Further use will result in legal action.
Dying creatures thrash about as they go to meet their doom.
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to the public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back."
-Life-Line by Robert A. Heinlein (1939)
/Anonymously because I don't need the karma.
sigh, sorry my stupid little brother saw i was still logged in and decided to insult people using my account
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons