The return of Google News to Spain is already a fact. Yesterday the company confirmed the obvious: your news aggregator will operate again in Spain almost eight years later of its closure. At the beginning of 2022, the technological giant itself announced.
The transposition of the European copyright regulations, which on Tuesday approved the Council of Ministers, already opened the door to disembarkation of the new version of Google News Showcase, a news platform that will be made available to users. That's where press editors in Spain can reach agreements with technology individually or collectively.
In fact, the key to the Agreement with Google occurs at that point, article 32.2 of the norm, which leaves the Canon AEDE without effect, which forced Google to be able to bind and show any content of the media to The Association of EDITORES CEDRO, and in the option that each medium can seal individual agreements with the company.
In the modification of that article, in the new Law published yesterday by the BOE, the obligation of this payment is withdrawn in line with the agreement reached at European level. However, with the current wording, in our country Google you will only have to pay for the news that appear in your aggregator. The server search engine, which is something more than 70% of the searches, will be exempt as it passed so far.
The regulations aim that "the search instruments of isolated words", that is, the search engines, will not be subject to "authorization or remuneration" when it does not have "own commercial purpose" and is "circumscribed to the essential to offer search results in Response to consultations previously formulated by a user ", or" include a link to the source page of the contents ". That means that the Technology will have to pay more or less by 30% of the clicks, those who come from Google News Showcase.
According to Jorge Corrales, General Director of Cedar, this assumes that a "legal insecurity" could be generated because, when the agreements come, the media will even have to explore "judicial routes" to obtain Google remuneration at this point. In fact, in Germany, the Association of Editors of about 200 media required the company's $ 420 million in copyright, an 11% rate, by 2022, by having content in its search engine following the guidelines of The Board of Arbitration of the German Patent Office and Brands.
In France, the Antitrust Office accused Google of "abusive practices" and requested technology 500 million euros as compensation for the use of content following the country's press protection law and the new European regulations.
In Spain, the return of Google News and the new law that regulates copyright have been received with various opinions. The Association of Information Media (AMI), which brings together 80 national and regional media, has not yet been pronounced while continuing to study the law, and in Cedar aim that this gives "less protection to copyrights", especially in the case Of the search engines, not having to pay any amount to the media.
Since the Open Club of Editors (CLABE), for its part, indicate that the European Directive allows the means to "recover the reins of the management of our rights". "For media editors, Google News is a valuable channel so that its contents reach readers and helps them convert those readers into subscribers and, therefore, grow their income", detail its president, school arsenium.
The president of the Federation of Associations of Journalists from Spain (FAPE), Nemesio Rodríguez, puts the focus on another of the points of the norm: remuneration to the authors. According to the European Directive, the author must perceive "a proportional part" of the agreement of the Agreement that reach publishers with the developers for their work in copyright.
Rodríguez stresses that in other countries the technological giant is imposing confidentiality clauses in its agreements with publishers, which complicates that remuneration to the author, who should perceive a part. "How are we going to know what is up to the journalists if we do not know the agreement that is established between Google and the publisher?" It questions the President of FAPE, who points out that this law opens "a scenario of uncertainty" for the next ones. months.
In that future, the only certainty that exists at the moment is that Google News will be back in our country almost eight years after its closure in 2014. At that time, the approval of the Intellectual Property Law made Google decide to close this Service, being Spain The first country in the world in facing this situation.
For years, negotiations between Google, the media and the Ministry of Culture have been constant to reach an agreement. This was finally achieved in Brussels, in 2019, and will be executed in Spain with five months late from the forecasts that handled in the Europe Union. Now the new negotiation is in the hands of technology and press editors.
Date Of Update: 03 November 2021, 22:55
