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

Posted by EditorDavid on from the pay-to-paste dept.

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."

8 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. Google's reply? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "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.)

    1. Re:Google's reply? by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

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    2. Re:Google's reply? by Dangerous_Minds · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

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  2. Re:Death to publishers by macklin01 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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]

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  3. Re:That worked great in Germany by wabrandsma · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  4. Re:good luck with that one... by davester666 · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

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  5. Re:good luck with that one... by qeveren · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

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  6. Re:good luck with that one... by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

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