Spanish news to vanish from Google News globally

[Wilikon]

Google announced Thursday it will close Google News in Spain and block reports from Spanish publishers from more than 70 Google News international editions due to a new Spanish law requiring aggregators to pay to link content — a decision that will reverberate around the globe.

Google News in Spain will shut down on Dec. 16 — several weeks before a new Spanish intellectual property law takes effect Jan. 1 requiring news publishers to be paid.
That means people in Latin America, where Spanish news organizations have sought to boost their audiences, won't see news from Spain via Google News in Mexico or elsewhere. Also set to disappear are reports in English from Spanish publishers like Madrid's leading El Pais newspaper.

People who use Google's standard search in Spain and anywhere else around the world will still be able to find articles on their own from Spanish publications, because the law applies only to aggregators and not to individuals who do their own searches outside of Google News.

The decision by Google Inc. is the first shutdown since Google News debuted as an experimental project in 2002.
Richard Gingras, head of Google News, said the decision was made "with real sadness" because Google News is "a service that hundreds of millions of users love and trust, including many here in Spain."

Spain's AEDE association, which represents large news publishers, had lobbied for the law nicknamed the "Google Tax." It declined comment Thursday. A spokesman for El Pais said the newspaper did not plan to comment on Google's action and the publishers of three other large Spanish newspaper groups also declined to comment or did not respond to messages.
But Spain's Culture Ministry characterized Google's move as a legitimate business decision. The ministry also said the law doesn't apply to individuals and will protect the intellectual property of publications that spend money to create content without hindering freedom of information.


[...]
Alejandro Tourino, a Madrid-based lawyer who specializes in media issues and has worked for The Associated Press on several legal cases, said Spanish news publishers may "have shot themselves out of the market. Time will tell."


http://apnews.myway.com/article/20141211/eu--google-spain-460415ef18.html

[pedrog]

At last someone big is making a stand against IP cartels.

[pinger]

As a Spaniard, I'm happy that Google news leaves Spain and fuck all the "AEDE community". They are fucking stealers and corrupt bastards just like the ones who govern us.

Anyway I would prefer that Google has just banned from the search engine all the media associated to AEDE.

There is an active boycott to AEDE from many Spaniards, the big problem is that the small media agencies (not associated to AEDE) maybe would not survive to this google strategy.

[freedomno1]

I have no strong opinions on either side of this issue, the reality as far as I know it in North America is that news publications need to find new ways to monetize articles.

Since google seems to have been taking news articles from other publications for free they were asked to pay a fee in aggregation, but since google wants to be cheap and maximize their bottom line they are leaving the area instead and any potential profits that could have been made from a google tax.

Guess it will be interesting to see who relents first in the long run, newspaper companies or aggregates like google.