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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

#221

Post by pm90 »

jasonisalive wrote: post #219
muyuu wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main media in Spain will start hosting sites abroad to bypass this law. This law is basically a way to hinder smaller media more than collecting money from Google, and in this respect I guess it will work.

It's always the small fish who suffer the most from socialist policies. Only large organisations can justify the resources to out-maneuever punitive legislation. It's a shame that this irony isn't more widely understood.

I think it is understood pretty well by those large organizations, and also the politicians that they are in cahoots with.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#222

Post by jcfrei »

mcv wrote: post #192
SiVal wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the article: 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. This sounds as though it won't matter if Spanish news aggregators move abroad, because the law applies to the Spanish news sources themselves, not the aggregator. Unless I'm misunderstanding (and maybe I am, so…

That is exactly the market opportunity I'm seeing here: news sites for Spanish news that are based outside Spain. Reporting on issues abroad is still possible, and they may even be able to hire freelancers based in Spain. Or to put it another way: with no way to find Spanish news sites online, Spaniards would become entirely dependent on foreign news sites, which creates an incentive for foreign sites to focus more o…

Indeed, a very interesting development and I already see the government back paddling in a few years time. Imagine a large part of the Spanish receiving the bulk of their news from Mexican news outlets - the Spanish nationalists will go furious. It'll be a very ironic watershed moment.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#223

Post by radio4fan »

jasonisalive wrote: post #219
muyuu wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main media in Spain will start hosting sites abroad to bypass this law. This law is basically a way to hinder smaller media more than collecting money from Google, and in this respect I guess it will work.

It's always the small fish who suffer the most from socialist policies. Only large organisations can justify the resources to out-maneuever punitive legislation. It's a shame that this irony isn't more widely understood.

While I have no opinion either way on your post, I felt that I should point out that Spain's government is not socialist.

The party in power (Partido Popular) is on the right of Spanish politics, and sits with the right wing EPP group in the European Parliament.

For what it's worth, while the US tends to think of Europe as being socialist, I can't think of any EU countries with socialist governments except Austria and Denmark.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#224

Post by Retric »

newuser88273 wrote: post #211
fpp wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar (not to that extreme) just happened in Germany during the last 12-24 months. The conservative party massively expanded the copyright of publishers (German legislation: Leistungsschutzrecht - English http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancillary_copyright_for_press_p... ) and some of the larger publishers then started to demand payments from Google for including snippets in its news services. Google reacted by removi…

So it seems the problem with the German law was that they created a basic prisoner's dilemma kind of situation. Publishers who tried to get some compensation from Google for appropriating the fruits of their labor were thwarted by defection from those who didn't. It seems the Spanish law was drafted in recognition of this game theoretic problem. If traffic drops for Spanish publishers turn out to remain well below th…

The problem is google news could link to news sites outside of Germany so there were already a large number of 'defectors'. The same thing applies to Spanish media.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#225

Post by marcosdumay »

muyuu wrote: post #204
mcv wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is exactly the market opportunity I'm seeing here: news sites for Spanish news that are based outside Spain. Reporting on issues abroad is still possible, and they may even be able to hire freelancers based in Spain. Or to put it another way: with no way to find Spanish news sites online, Spaniards would become entirely dependent on foreign news sites, which creates an incentive for foreign sites to focus more o…

The main media in Spain will start hosting sites abroad to bypass this law. This law is basically a way to hinder smaller media more than collecting money from Google, and in this respect I guess it will work.

I dunno. How hard is it to host a site abroad?

I know very little about Spain situation, but even then I'd guess that it's easier than hosting it in Spain. Smaller media can certainly do that.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#226

Post by lazylizard »

antr wrote: post #182
tomp wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem to me seems to be a budget balance issue: how can Governments pay for services that a large number of the population uses, but doesn't pay. If the population doesn't pay, who does? The way taxes work, is that the population pays the taxes to the government, and the government in return pays for/provides certain services. Taxation is basically just like insurance, coupled with some sort of progressive re…

> If the population doesn't pay, who does? Like in most countries, including the US, budget deficit is paid with debt, and increase in taxes. That is the problem. The solution here is to uncover the underground economy, make them pay taxes (at reasonable rates), although this is no silver bullet.

about collecting taxes to pay for stuff..isn't it far easier to print new money than to collect old money back?

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#227

Post by aikah »

jasonisalive wrote: post #219
muyuu wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main media in Spain will start hosting sites abroad to bypass this law. This law is basically a way to hinder smaller media more than collecting money from Google, and in this respect I guess it will work.

It's always the small fish who suffer the most from socialist policies. Only large organisations can justify the resources to out-maneuever punitive legislation. It's a shame that this irony isn't more widely understood.

The current spanish government is hardly socialist

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#228

Post by Atropos »

einrealist wrote: post #189
SiVal wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the article: 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. This sounds as though it won't matter if Spanish news aggregators move abroad, because the law applies to the Spanish news sources themselves, not the aggregator. Unless I'm misunderstanding (and maybe I am, so…

I guess, the law may also be in conflict with EU law/rulings/contracts. Aggregator companies outside Spain have an advantage over those within the spanish jurisdiction. So those spanish companies can call the European Court to fight the spanish law.

Unfortunately the law does not work in this direction: It is perfectly fine under EU law if Spain treats its own companies worse than Non-Spain EU companies. Lacking a cross-border element, the EU freedoms (Freedom of services/establishment) don't apply, and I think it would be hard to classify the Spanish law as an export ban.

However the Spanish rules might constitute a restriction of competition under EU law, but since the political climate is a bit anti-Google right now, maybe it won't be investigated too closely.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#229

Post by ep103 »

jasonisalive wrote: post #219
muyuu wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main media in Spain will start hosting sites abroad to bypass this law. This law is basically a way to hinder smaller media more than collecting money from Google, and in this respect I guess it will work.

It's always the small fish who suffer the most from socialist policies. Only large organisations can justify the resources to out-maneuever punitive legislation. It's a shame that this irony isn't more widely understood.

This has nothing to do with socialism.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#230

Post by flurdy »

dyadic wrote: post #63
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…

For sure. Point 3, I think they already have covered. I think it's pretty safe to say that the BBC is a well known and established brand, and also a producer of high quality content. The best way to look at it now is that they're stuck in a local maxima, they could definitely gain by broadcasting online to the world but it might take some time and will most definitely hit them financially in the short run. There's al…

Related then and now of what the UK's TV license results in http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/posts/Efficiency-at-t... http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/wh...
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