Copyright Law, Fragments and Imagination

Michael Hedges February 24, 2014 - Follow on Twitter

Intellectual property rights laws are undoubtedly overdue for revision. The digital age has, remarkably, expanded access to a wide range of words, songs, pictures and ideas. Creating all that is work, deserving recognition. The laws see the door to those works as either open or closed. The simple solution is finding a different door.

Spain’s government, following in the footsteps of French, German and Belgian politicians, is changing national law to allow publishers access to the coffers of big search engine companies. Proposed amendments to Spain’s Intellectual Property Law offered by the Council of Ministers (February 14) are, with characteristic absence of creativity, referred to as a “Google tax.” The Spanish government is under considerable pressure to fix, broadly, a porous intellectual property law that has allowed the country to become a serious piracy offender.

Going after Google – and Yahoo! and news aggregators and maybe social media portals – satisfies a certain need to assuage grumpy publishers who, largely, view search engines as a well to be pumped rather than the corner kiosk for the digital age. The proposed revisions to the Spanish law address publisher’s distaste for ‘snippets’ of text used with headlines and links without compensation. News aggregators will still be allowed to use those “non-significant fragments” without asking but publishers can seek compensation. Photographs can’t be touched.

Search engines and news aggregators indexing web pages originating in Spain would be required to negotiate a fee with copyright management agency CEDRO. That fee cannot be waived by the author or publisher. “Outside our borders,” said El Confidencial Digital (February 19), “no one has dared so far to impose a tax on companies like Google or Yahoo for their news services to link to the original newspaper or magazine text.”

The draft now begins the winding journey through the Spanish Parliament. Revisions are expected. Google Spain representatives deferred comment until the full text, not publicly released, could be examined, reported 20minutos.es (February 14). The draft amendments also narrow the concept of private copying of digital material.

A group of German publishers took a 50% stake in collecting agency VG Media, reported Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) (February 18). The publishers – including Axel Springer and Hubert Burda - are looking for leverage and, of course, Google money. “We now have the great opportunity to decide on the commercial exploitation of journalistic content,” said Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner.

German online copyright law changed last August but last minute changes in the draft left publishers wanting. The revised law inscribed the right of publishers to commercially exploit online content. It did not force Google to pay for ‘snippets’ as publishers demanded. Google lawyers confounded the German publishers by requiring an opt-in to search indexing or face removal from the digital kiosk prior to the new laws coming into effect. The Google position on compensation for ‘snippets’ and links has not changed, said Google Germany managing director Philipp Justus to horizont.net (February). “For us it is still clear; we will not pay for ‘snippets’, no matter whether the demand comes from a publishing house or by a collecting society.”

To satisfy EC Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia, Google lawyers proposed a robot exclusion protocol that refines exclusion from Google News search results. An online publisher can opt-out entirely, set a page expiration date or allow headlines only without the little ‘snippet’. Commissioner Almunia provisionally accepted that and other concessions from Google (February 5) to the horror of competitors and publishers.

Commissioner Almunia has been defending his position, which all EC commissioners must agree with before it becomes final. There was “no gentleman’s agreement” with Google to bring an end to the anti-trust complaint, he said to a conference, quoted by Reuters (February 21). His next and perhaps last big anti-trust proceeding is against Russian energy giant Gazprom.

See also in ftm Knowledge

Intellectual Property Rights - Yours, Mine and Ours

Every content creator and user has a vested interest in intellectual property rights, the rules meant to set a course for fair distribution of art, music, video and the written word. Agreement on those rules is not absolute. This ftm Knowledge file explores what's yours, mine and ours. 42 pages PDF (March 2011)

Order here

Media Laws – New and Revised

Policy makers and politicians are writing and rewiting media laws and rules at a breakneck pace. As broadcasters and publishers grapple with changes brought about by digital development, new business models and financial distress, the new media is feeling rules tightening around it. From licensing and public broadcasting to privacy, piracy and copyright this ftm Knowledge file Media Laws – New and Revised summarizes new laws and revised laws from a media perspective. 135 pages PDF (December 2010)

Order here