German Bill Seeks Licensing Fee from Google, Other Search Engines - krebswiterver

Germany is considering a copyright bill that would force search engines to pay licensing fees for reproducing newspapers' headlines and the first paragraphs of articles, a measure that has Google dormy in blazon.

Reported to the draft legal philosophy, hunt engines would be utilizing proprietary substantial by reproducing headlines and paragraphs of news stories, so they would have to compensate fees accordingly.

[Related: 10 Terrible Technical school Laws that Have You in Their Bull's-Eye]

"Nobody sees a real reason why this should be enforced," Kay Oberbeck, Google's North European Union communications chief, told GigaOM. "Information technology's genuinely harmful, not just for users who wouldn't line up as much information atomic number 3 they find now, only such a law is also not justified for economical reasons or judicial reasons."

Oberbeck's argument has some validity to information technology. Google and other look for engines' ability to reproduce headlines in order to link readers to the corresponding newsworthiness sites plays a role in driving traffic to those sites. And, of course, Thomas More traffic means more advertizing-clicks, which is how well-nig websites make money.

And Oberbeck pointed out that anyone who doesn't want their site indexed by Google posterior opt unstylish of the service.

This variant of the bill is a second draft; the first draft precious to enter a form of "ancillary copyright" that would have required companies to pay licensing fees for any publicised work used in a commercial setting. Put differently, employers would have had to remuneration a licensing fee for whatever publicised works (e.g. online news, etc.) consumed at their work place.

That was by nature met with resistance (from everyone but publishers), and so the planned natural law was narrowed to include only search engines.

Though such a police force may seem absurd and unsustainable to the average person — subsequently all, how will publishers generate as much money as realistic if Googles stop linking to a place — Google has actually come up against similar barriers in some France and Kingdom of Belgium. In 2007, Google signed a licensing agreement with the European country wire divine service Agence France-Presse, which allowed the search locomotive to use the French news service's material in Google News. Prior to this licensing agreement, the Alpha foetoprotein sued Google in both France and the United States for using its content.

Just because it's been an issue in the past doesn't mean it's sustainable, though. Google lost a copyright lawsuit in Belgium in 2011, and was required to remove complete articles and photos from all Belgian newspapers in French and German (under threat of a day-to-day fine). However, it's hard to envisage that those newspapers are doing Eastern Samoa well as their much tech-savvy counterparts.

That said, the proposed German law looks like publishers are taking a different tactic. Information technology doesn't come out that German publishers necessarily want to be unfindable on the Cyberspace — rather, information technology looks alike they want a larger piece of the advertizing-money-pie. Google makes a lot of money off advertisements by linking to various news sources' material, and publishers have been seeing their revenues shrink as the Network has taken over.

But it doesn't seem similar creating absurd copyright laws are really the answer. Equal the music and movie industries, perhaps the Germanic publication industry merely needs to embrace the exemption of the Cyberspace — non block it.

Follow Sarah on Chirrup, Facebook, or Google+.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/460816/german_bill_seeks_licensing_fee_from_google_other_search_engines.html

Posted by: krebswiterver.blogspot.com

Share this post