[LINK] ACCC's Mandatory Media Bargaining Code

[Kim Holburn]

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141212/07360229413/surprise-spanish-newspapers-beg-government-eu-to-stop-google-news-shutting-down.shtml

> Surprise: Spanish Newspapers Beg Government And EU To Stop Google News Shutting Down
> 
> Failures
> from the bed-made,-lie-in-it dept
> Fri, Dec 12th 2014 10:31am — Glyn Moody
> Yesterday, we wrote about Google's decision to shut its Google News service in Spain as a result of that country's insane new copyright law. In a move that will surprise no one -- except, perhaps, at how little time it took to happen -- the newspapers association is now begging the Spanish government to do something about the damage the new law, which the publishers lobbied for, is about to wreak on the newspaper industry. The Spain Report explains:
> 
>>     The Spanish Newspaper Publishers' Association (AEDE) issued a statement last night saying that Google News was "not just the closure of another service given its dominant market position", recognising that Google’s decision: "will undoubtedly have a negative impact on citizens and Spanish businesses".
>> 
>>     "Given the dominant position of Google (which in Spain controls almost all of the searches in the market and is an authentic gateway to the Internet), AEDE requires the intervention of Spanish and community authorities, and competition authorities, to effectively protect the rights of citizens and companies".
> 
> What that intervention might be is not clear. AEDE can hardly expect the Spanish government to pass a new law making it compulsory for Google to keep its Google News service running at a loss. The only workable option is to take the route followed in Germany: to give Google a special deal that allows it to carry on as before, but without having to pay -- which would gut the new copyright law completely.
> 
> What makes this situation even more ridiculous is that, according to the ABC.es newspaper, German publishers are now asking Angela Merkel to change the manifestly broken German approach to using news snippets online, by copying the even more backward-looking Spanish law (original in Spanish.) Once again, it seems that an obsession with "protecting" copyright from imaginary harm causes otherwise rational people to lose the ability to think properly. 



-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
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