Madrid, December 11 (EFE) .- The announcement that Google will no longer include references to Spanish media in Google News reopens the debate on copyright law that will force from January to news aggregators pay compensation to publishers when using fragments of its contents.
Not for announced, the news has not caused a stir in Spain, where the Ministry of Education and Culture has been quick to assure in a statement that the development of the law in which the controversial “Google tax” is included, continue forward outside the closure of Google News, issue that became first thing in the morning notable trend in social networking.
Google News announced this morning a decision that its director, Richard Gingras, arguing that: “Forces -the new Spanish- Spanish law to any publication to charge a fee willy-nilly, to services like Google News to show the minimal fragment of its publications. This new approach is simply unsustainable. “
Sources of Google Spain warned that the main victims are the users and emphasized his” great sadness “at being forced to close its news service.
The same sources have pointed to Efe that Google would consider the possibility that Google News “back to work as usual” in the event that the Copyright Act “does not compel publishers to charge a fee to aggregators news. “
It is in the inalienable rate or character seems to be the key to this issue, as there are media who do not want to charge such compensation and do not want to be excluded from the aggregator.
The government says the Copyright Act “nothing hinders freedom of information, always respecting and protecting the intellectual property rights of authors” and reassures users, to ensure that access to information on the Internet continues guaranteed.
Speaking to reporters in Congress, the Minister José Ignacio Wert, it remains so clear that payment of the fee is waived and stressed that Google, with closure your aggregator, is ahead of regulations implementing the law, which “how to negotiate between aggregators and media -HA said- how this compensation will” be established.
These negotiations “can end in agreement, “insisted the minister, who stressed that the purpose of the provision is” to protect the media. “
However, recalled that those who consider that that rate does not involve them advantage and could reduce network traffic, “can always negotiate with the aggregator”.
The minister, who claimed that the rule goes in the same direction as those of other European countries and the approaches the EU itself, and tinged the “inalienable” nature of the tariff, one of the aspects highlighted by Google in their criticism of the new legislation.
The Association of Spanish Newspaper Publishers (AEDE), mainstay the “Google tax”, has merely stated that this is a business decision and has refused to comment further.
On the Internet, the issue has been widely reported-a trend highlighted in Twitter from first hour of the morning and most of the comments are critical of the government and publishers and warn of what they consider a setback in freedom of information and negative consequences for the media themselves for possible drop in Internet traffic.
No comments:
Post a Comment