EU Copyright Reform Proposes Search Engines Pay For Snippets (thestack.com)

An anonymous Slashdot reader reports that the European Commission "is planning reforms that would allow media outlets to request payment from search engines such as Google, for publishing snippets of their content in search results." The Stack reports: The working paper recommends the introduction of an EU law that covers the rights to digital reproduction of news publications. This would essentially make news publishers a new category of rights holders under copyright law, thereby ensuring that "the creative and economic contribution of news publishers is recognized and incentivized in EU law, as it is today the case for other creative sectors."

Comments

Google's reply?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Well, we'd rather not have to pay, so... we'll just not index your content anymore. kthxbye"

(Meanwhile Microsoft probably had something to say too, but nobody asked.)

Re:Google's reply?

[Opportunist]

We're not talking about delisting a continent, only its media outlets. I can't think of anything more devastating.

Re:Google's reply?

[Dangerous_Minds]

Indeed. By all means big publishers, demand money from Google. When Google delists you, all that juicy traffic will go to the smaller independent news sites who will be more than happy to make some extra ad impressions. Heck, I would go so far as to say some of them are jumping up and down in excitement over the prospect of some of the big media outlets cutting themselves out of that stream of traffic.

Re:That worked great in Germany

[aaribaud]

Alright, so... The document does not originate from an official EU website. It has no actual date, or more to the point, it has a conspicuously "redacted" date showing only the year. No known author either, not even an obscure reference to an author's initials. OK, 180+ pages is enormous for a hoax, but just because it does not have all obvious markings of a forgery does not make it genuine. And just because it is genuine does not make it something "the EU Commission is planning". So... I'll wait for a more official source for the moment.

Re:That worked great in Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

"then Google is paying those news websites for the right to use the content so indexed."
No. The papers gave google a free licence to publish the snippets.

Re:Death to publishers

[macklin01]

Well, thats easy to solve:

When we get the right to demand money for whatever we deem is our interlectual property, the next step is to demand that companies like google are not allowed to make their own decisions in regard to what they return as search results. We'll put that under something like "no discrimination" or something.

Sounds like Spain tried to do this almost verbatim:

The Spanish Newspapers Publishersâ(TM) Association (AEDE) is now asking that the Spanish government and EU competition authorities stop Google News from shutting down its operations in the country, âoeto protect the rights of citizens and businesses.â

The media lobby group announced that an end to Spanish Google News would represent âoenot just the closure of another service given its dominant market position,â identifying that the closure would âoeundoubtedly have a negative impact on citizens and Spanish businesses.â

source: [thestack.com]

Re:That worked great in Germany

[wabrandsma]

This is a leaked draft impact assessment(PDF alert), you can read more about it here: European Copyright Leak Exposes Plans to Force the Internet to Subsidize Publishers

This is what Julia Reda (MEP) says about it: Commissioner Oettinger is about to turn EU copyright reform into another ACTA:

This is not a copyright fit for the digital age. It’s a copyright that tries to protect the big players of the past from the future.

Europe’s publishing, film and music industries have clearly found that influencing Commissioner Oettinger to write laws is easier and more lucrative than adapting to progress and competing fairly.

Re:Death to publishers

[Anonymous Coward]

If ALL publishers died, then Google would have nothing to index. They astounding thing to note is that the publishers got their "lex Google" in Germany, and they've already caved and given Google a free exemption, so this isn't going to hurt Google, just other search engines. Instead of limiting Google's power over their business, they have increased it. And they STILL keep pushing for this on a larger scale. I'm sincerely convinced that getting an MBA rots people's brains. There is no other reasonable explanation.

Re:good luck with that one...

[davester666]

Why does "copyright reform" always mean increasing copyright, either what it protects or overall term. never a reduced term or increased "fair use".

Re:good luck with that one...

[qeveren]

Because you don't pay enough to buy the laws you want.

What will the news orgs pay out?

[physicsphairy]

Journalism is almost entirely taking "snippets" from other people in the form of quotes and information and compiling them into a story, so I must assume the newspapers will also be paying out royalties on their articles to anyone they interview, mention, or quote (including when they search for comments on twitter and facebook as they like to do now).

Re:Why is this bad??

[Zontar The Mindless]

Let me spell it out for you:

1. Google created and maintains at its own expense a mechanism for redirecting users to your site and Google doesn't charge you anything for it.

2. Now you're demanding that Google pay you for what you're already receiving at no charge to you.

If, given (1), it sounds like (2) is pretty fucked up, that's because it is.

Content

[pablo_max]

And that is the point. It is "content", not news anymore. Hardly anyone is "reporting" on anything. Look at nearly every single tech site. They only just regurgitate press releases from this or that manufacture or "report" on what was written on some other site.
Everything they post is skin deep drivel.
Most of the "so called" news sites are nothing more than click bait at best and attempts to brainwash the masses into adopting the political message of whoever owns the site.
There are a couple of sites which I do carry a subscription to, but those are the few who really take the time to research their articles.

Google would be doing us a favor to just delist nearly all sites.

Re:good luck with that one...

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Why does "copyright reform" always mean increasing copyright

It doesn't. Around two years ago, the UK government passed a law that created a private copying exception, thus finally legalising things like format shifting or using cloud services as long as someone had a legitimate personal copy and it was not being shared around.

Of course, less than a year later, that law was struck down after a judicial review, because EU.

And that wasn't an isolated incident, as we see here. The EU is fast turning into global enemy #1 for progressive copyright reform. It's a huge supporter of big rightsholders at the expense of everyone else.