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Google News to shut down in Spain

googlepolicyeurope.blogspot.com

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Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#131

Post by icebraining »

KobaQ wrote: post #66
rsync wrote: post #13

Things are going very badly for a global internet if we are discussing a web site "shutting down in spain". Of course we all know what that means and it seems very sensible in 2014, but remember - if someone had told you in 1998 that a certain website would not be operating in country X, you would have laughed and explained to them (like a child) that the Internet was a single global network and that if one had Inter…

It is a long long time ago when Google could be considered innocent (acting ethically). Actually, they're acting the opposite way for ages by ignoring copyright, privacy and by manipulating. Generally I agree, however. The ethic mostly seems to be gone. And it has to be taken care of by enforcing copyright and privacy protection laws. I had my wake-up moment when Facebook started copying whole Wikipedia articles inst…

Wikipedia content is CC licensed, it's perfectly legal to copy their articles.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#132

Post by eru »

ars wrote: post #48
magicalist wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like the difference is they can't come to an agreement with publishers this time: "This new legislation requires every Spanish publication to charge services like Google News for showing even the smallest snippet from their publications, whether they want to or not" (though of course they may be overstating the requirement)

Google should charge for listing, and it would be a nice coincidence - totally random of course, that the amount they charge is exactly the same as the amount they have to pay. Kind of like what amazon did when France forced them to charge shipping.

They closed that loophole. Google would have to pay to a third party (equivalent of the American RIAA, essentially), but they would have to charge the individual websites.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#133

Post by eru »

dordoka wrote: post #109
magicalist wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like the difference is they can't come to an agreement with publishers this time: "This new legislation requires every Spanish publication to charge services like Google News for showing even the smallest snippet from their publications, whether they want to or not" (though of course they may be overstating the requirement)

It´s actually no overstatement. The law includes a clause specifically to avoid that, stating that paying the tax is an "inalienable right". Of course, as the law reads, it´s more an obligation that a right... As a spanish citizen, I´m equally ashamed and enraged of this old-fashioned, short-sighted and conservative law.

What makes it conservative? The law seems quite disruptive to me.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#134

Post by sidharth_k »

chetanahuja wrote: post #51
sounds wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your dilemma could be a false dichotomy if (and I realize it's a big if): * BBC puts things on the global internet * Global users can discover it more readily * BBC becomes well-known as a provider of quality content * Demand for BBC content increases because of the online content already available * BBC can charge more for future content (which it can export first to high-profit-margin channels, then publish onli…

And in any case, the public funding argument never hindered the excellent BBC worldwide radio service.

Its a combination of profit and political influence which is what makes BBC and interesting animal. The BBC world service radio gets Britain a lot of global coverage and political mindspace. Showing sherlock homes free?? Maybe not.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#135

Post by eru »

sparkzilla wrote: post #52
gcb0 wrote: post #6

"we don't make money because we do not advertise on that site" is a huge fallacy. This sounds like a bluff because if that gets traction in the US then their search business will collapse. Imagine $0.01 for every search that shows a snipet of wikipedia to the wiki foundation?

Google already makes billions from Wikipedia. The problem with kicking money back is that nothing goes to the contributors, but to the useless Wikimedia Foundation.

You can try to fork Wikipedia. The content is all available, all you need is a bunch of servers; then you can convince the contributors to come over.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#136

Post by kh_hk »

"the worse the better", I am happy about this.

Articles about this have been going around Spanish news aggregators for a while. Now that there's an official statement from Google, message will finally go around the world showing what kind of stupid laws the Spanish government is passing around with the influence of the powerful copyright lobbies.

Now, about the recent Spanish Intellectual Property reform. The particular reform affecting Google is actually called the AEDE tax. This reform will affect any news aggregator operating in Spain.

AEDE stands for Asociación de Editores de Diarios Españoles, as in Spanish Association of Newspaper Editors. This private association, together with another one called CEDRO, will take care of collecting this tax. Even if your publication is not associated with AEDE and because this reform is law, they will have the obligation to collect it.

This reform smells exactly the same as an old anti-piracy law. Just change AEDE for SGAE (another association, related to authors and editors). For a while, any kind of media support was subject to this tax. Any media support, including hard drives and even cameras, on the pretense that these might be used to store content subject to IP. This law was derogated on 2011, but not completely. Now it's the state the one who pays this tax to SGAE. I can see this AEDE tax having poor results, and either the public or the state ending up having to pay for it.

Funnily enough, this just shows how weird and different some people think. This tax is proposing that news aggregators cause loss damage to news producers just as torrent aggregators cause damages to Warner. Note that this IP reform also includes fines of around 150k to 600k euros for running a site that links to copyrighted material. Before, it was only an infraction if a site was causing "significant damages". This has been eliminated, as in, any damage is a significant damage.

Just as a remark, let's not confuse this with the so-called "Google Tax", which is related to stopping Google and other big co's from evading taxes in Europe and has nothing to do with intellectual property. To be fair, I do not even know by now, as they call "Google tax" anything that is going to affect Google, nevermind.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#137

Post by uniformlyrandom »

notjackma wrote: post #115
uniformlyrandom wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that HR department is a charity, then you do not really understand what HR department does. Try running a company without one, and see how much money you lose.

Try reading what I wrote again. Google employs lots of people who work on things which do not directly generate revenue themselves, but which do contribute to the company's overall profit and loss. Such as HR. However, based on Google's bitchy blog post, were they to treat all such projects and departments equally like Google News, thousands of people would be pink-slipped tomorrow. Get it now?

The difference is they do not lose any money if they stop running Google News Spain. They do if they stop running HR.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#138

Post by pjc50 »

sounds wrote: post #41
dyadic wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two sides to the scourge. WRT the BBC, they produce quality content, partly funded by us Brits and partly funded by exporting the content to other countries. With the internet they have limited choices: * Keep things off the internet and disappoint everyone * Put things on the global internet and lose export value * Put things on the internet but geolocate to the UK and retain export value Clearly for them,…

So your dilemma could be a false dichotomy if (and I realize it's a big if): * BBC puts things on the global internet * Global users can discover it more readily * BBC becomes well-known as a provider of quality content * Demand for BBC content increases because of the online content already available * BBC can charge more for future content (which it can export first to high-profit-margin channels, then publish onli…

BBC iPlayer publishes online immediately. Making that globally available would definitely impact ability to sell.

An alternative would be allowing people to log in with a TV license number.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#139

Post by pmontra »

kh_hk wrote: post #136

"the worse the better", I am happy about this. Articles about this have been going around Spanish news aggregators for a while. Now that there's an official statement from Google, message will finally go around the world showing what kind of stupid laws the Spanish government is passing around with the influence of the powerful copyright lobbies. Now, about the recent Spanish Intellectual Property reform. The particu…

I bet that google.com will still be visible in Spain. Search results include links to copyrighted material: web sites like elpais.com which id © EDICIONES EL PAÍS S.L. and a zillion others all around the world. Is Google removing this'd sites from the index for searches originating from Spain or it will pay the fine?

This is to show how unreasonable that law is if it's really as general as it looks.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#140

Post by kokey »

ogig wrote: post #111
rgbrenner wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NO, because neither Reddit nor HN operate in Spain, and therefore are not subject to Spannish law.

That's not so clear. I don't know the in an outs of this specific law, but for example a gambling site has to comply with Spanish law if it serves to spaniards. No matter where it's legally located. That's why most gambling .coms geo blacklist spanish or redirect them to the spanish law compliant version of their service. Same with consumer laws, those apply if I buy a product in other country. For example Spanish la…

The gambling thing is a bit different, normally it's the sites that cooperate like that so that they have a chance to be able to become a licensed provider in that country in the future. It's a strange trend in that industry that also goes counter to various trade agreements, but that's just how it goes. That said countries can also take action locally against foreign entities they believe are breaking their local laws, and go after their local assets, e.g. they could seize their .es domain names or take action against any local office or other assets that they have.
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