MADRID – On December 16, 2014, the Google News Spain service shut down in protest at the changes to the intellectual property law that Spain had passed in the summer of that year. However, due to a new amendment to the law, the service will return to the country.
That law required Google and similar services to pay a tax on all results it obtains from media affiliated with the Spanish news association. Therefore, the American internet company decided not to do this because it does not earn anything from showing the news feeds.
Copyright law amended
Now that Spain has amended the copyright directive, Google will reintroduce its news service early next year. Due to the change in law, Google no longer has to pay a large monthly amount to index news items from Spanish media via Google News. Now media can choose not to charge a fee at all and Google can negotiate rates with individual publications and optionally choose not to include certain media in the service.
Positive change
Google plans to negotiate with Spanish publishers in the coming months to prepare Google News for this new law. According to the company, this is a positive change for Spanish readers, as they can now more easily find information from more news sources. Furthermore, this also helps in combating disinformation. Media also benefit a lot from the change, says Google. Inclusion in the news service gives them a lot of extra visitors.
Directive in line with the EU
Because many Spanish news publishers were not happy with the departure of the service, which resulted in many extra clicks and therefore income, Spain has decided to keep the directive in line with the EU. Only if publishers want to, they should be paid by services like this.
