German lawmakers have passed a watered-down law that will force search engines to pay to reproduce on their websites texts owned by media publishers.
The new copyright law, dubbed the “Lex Google”, was demanded by German media organisations as reimbursement for news aggregators earning money with their content.
Publishers wanted payment for use of all “snippets” of their articles on third-party websites, such as search engine results. Google and German online campaigners opposed the move, arguing that this was an unacceptable limitation on free distribution of information.
Two days before yesterday’s vote, the law was altered to allow websites present “snippets” on their sites as before, forcing them to pay for licences only for longer text blocks.
The compromise Bill passed the lower house, the Bundestag, by 293 votes to 243 and now passes to the upper house, the Bundesrat.
Definition of ‘snippet’
Opposition parties failed in their demand to postpone yesterday’s vote on the modified law, complaining that the law does not specify how many words counts as a licence-free “snippet”. The government said it was up to websites and media organisations to agree among themselves how many words could be used for free.
But Konstantin von Notz, internet spokesman for the opposition Green Party, said the failure to define snippet length was a classic case of “verschlimm-bessern” – making something worse while trying to improve it.
For three years, German publishers have lobbied for the new online copyright law, claiming they were now in direct competition with companies like Google News and other aggregators, who were earning money with media companies’ own content.
In recent months, Google spearheaded a counter-campaign – online and in full-page newspaper advertisements – urging internet users to “defend your net”.
The company has faced similar copyright claims in Belgium and France. It defused the row in France by agreeing on a €60 million fund to support publishers to develop their online presence in exchange for continue free use of snippets. A similar deal was reached last December in Belgium.
Yesterday, the opposition Social Democrats (SPD) said they would use their majority in the Bundesrat, representing the federal states, to block the law and push for a return to the original legislation.
Google called for the law to be scrapped, not revised, saying it was “neither necessary nor sensible”. The BDZV Publishers’ Group welcomed yesterday’s vote on the law, saying that, “even if it doesn’t meet all our wishes, it is a . . . fair framework for the digital world”.