A law takes Google News out of Spain

On December 11, the Spanish legislature recently passed a new "Copyright Law" with very strict provisions. According to the law, if the news content published by Spanish publishers appears on Google News in Spain, even if there are only headlines, Google must pay licensing fees to the corresponding publishers. In view of this, Google decided to shut down the Google News service in Spain next week.

Some Spanish publishers, including newspaper group AEDE, are trying to use the ill-conceived copyright and anti-piracy law to impose mandatory licensing fees on Google for any news content that appears on Google News.

The new copyright law will take effect on January 1, 2015. Although Google has taken the lead and is preparing to shut down Google News in Spain, this will not affect the search results of the traditional Google search engine. Therefore, if you use the traditional Google search engine to search, news content will still appear in the search results. Last night, Google posted a blog post explaining the decision to shut down:

Due to a new Spanish law, we will have to shut down Google News in Spain as soon as possible. This is a sad decision. But it is not our fault. Let us explain why. This new law requires every publisher in Spain to charge for a service like Google News, even if Google News extracts only a small part of their publication, and the law does not ask them whether they want to pay Google. Since Google News does not make money, because we do not have ads, our model is unsustainable under this law. Therefore, with real sadness and regret, we will remove Spanish publishers from Google News and shut down Google News in Spain on the 16th of this month.

Spain's new copyright law follows Germany's failed attempt to collect licensing fees from Google. In Germany, Google required publishers to sign a waiver in order to include their news clips in Google News. However, Spain's new copyright law is more radical and does not give publishers such an opportunity. So even if they have a problem with the law, they cannot actually give up their copyright licensing rights.

Google's decision to shut down means that not only will there no longer be a Spanish version of Google News, but content from Spanish news publishers will no longer appear on other versions of Google News, including Google News services in other Spanish-speaking countries. However, some large news publishers have branches in Latin America and South America, so Google will continue to include local news content on its other news websites.

Spanish officials are likely to condemn Google's decision to shut down its News service in Spain as an eye-for-an-eye move, but the company says it does not make any money from its News service and has no choice.

Because of Google's decisive decision to shut down, I guess other European countries are unlikely to follow the example of Germany and Spain and rashly enact new hostile copyright laws against Google and impose taxes on Google (Google Tax). However, we will have to wait and see.

In the previous wave of lawsuits filed by European countries against Google for the "right to be forgotten", Spain also joined in, demanding that Google grant Internet users the "right to be forgotten."

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.