Copyright law prompts Google to close news service in Spain
Google said that it will shutter the Spanish version of its news service next week in response to a new local law that allows Spanish publishers and newspapers to charge the search engine each time their content appears on Google News.
That means Google News will no longer be available to Internet users in Spain. But it also means that Google News users in the United States and elsewhere will no longer be able to access the real-time updates from publications such as El Pais, La Vanguardia and El Periodico de Catalunya.
Google has been engaged in a high-stakes battle with the Spanish Association of Daily Newspaper Publishers. The industry group aggressively backed and ultimately won approval for a Spanish copyright law requiring that content providers be paid for the use of snippets and images drawn from their news stories. The law takes effect next month, and violators are subject to fines of up to 600,000 euros, or about $743,000. (While some are calling the new law a "Google tax," it will also apply to other online news services.)
The argument is simple. Google says its relationship with publishers is symbiotic. No, say the Spanish publishers, it's parasitic -- and they're done being hosts.
"For centuries publishers were limited in how widely they could distribute the printed page," Google executive Richard Gingras said in a blog post announcing the decision. "The Internet changed all that -- creating tremendous opportunities but also real challenges for publishers as competition both for readers' attention and for advertising Euros increased."
What's worse for Google than the Spanish law is that the issue probably won't stop at Spain's borders. The Spanish publishers have the backing of the European Newspaper Publishers' Association, which holds among its core principles that "In the digital environment, respect for copyright by all market players, including search engines and news aggregators, is a necessary precondition to ensure a sustainable press sector in Europe." In other words, the rest of Europe wants Google to pay for using local news content, too.
What has the European publishers so upset? Google News does to news stories what, in many ways, Google's search engine does to Web sites. It collects what's available online and presents it in a way that makes it easy and pleasant for Internet users to find what they're looking for. That Google built its index of the World Wide Web without anyone's permission in the late 1990s did a great deal to make the online world navigable to the average user.
But there is a difference. Google search results don't really resemble Web pages. But Google News looks a lot like the front page of an online newspaper. And that makes publishers nervous that they're being replaced.
Google News has been good for Google. Launched by a company engineer who was disappointed by what turned up from a search for "World Trade Center" in the hours after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Google News has helped turn the search giant into a more real-time, responsive service.
But Google argues that the service is good for publishers, too. The company has said that it drives "over 10 billion clicks a month to 60,000 publishers' websites, and we share billions of dollars annually with advertising publishing partners."
One irony in the dispute is that Google has never run ads on Google News, in part so that it can present the site as more of a public service than a product. Google has argued that having no ads on Google News means there's no revenue from which to pay publishers. Of course, Google, as a multibillion-dollar company, might be able to find the money elsewhere. But forcing Google into a pay-for-snippet model, some online activists have argued, threatens to disrupt the Internet ecosystem and damage the "right to link" that has long defined the World Wide Web.
So, for now, Google isn't willing to play ball.