Ancillary copyright for press publishers
The intellectual property right for press publishers is an intellectual property in Germany. Provision has been made in the coalition agreement between the CDU and FDP of 2009, a bill was end of August 2012 decided by the Federal Government introduced on November 14, 2012 in the Bundestag. On March 1, 2013, the law was passed in parliament with 293 votes in favor to 243 against. The Federal Council approved on March 22, 2013, the Act to amend the copyright law. In an accompanying motion he expresses the expectation that after the election, a proposal for amendment of the law is decided that strengthens the possibilities of the press publishers to enforce their rights, it respects the interests of copyright holders and ensures the principle of freedom of information. The Act was published on 14 May 2013 the Federal Law Gazette and entered into force on 1 August 2013.
- 3.1 IGEL
- 3.2 Max - Planck -Institut
- 3.3 Further votes against
Content
Through the related right for press publishers originally targeted that small excerpts from newspaper articles for a year already are protected by law from disclosure. These so-called snippets are shorter than three sentences in the rule and are often displayed along with the title and the URL on the internet in search results. The publishers should be given the exclusive right to make press products available to the public for commercial purposes on the internet. The display of snippets in search results would have been then no longer permitted provided previously not already have another control ( licensing) would have been made with the publisher. The bill provided that, for the display of snippets in search results, adequate remuneration would be paid to the publishers.
End of February 2013 changed the legal committee of the German Bundestag the draft law on decisive points: search engines should be allowed to use ' single words and very small text excerpts, " without having to pay fees to publishers. The reason given was that otherwise the fundamental right would have been restricted to information. Directed was also the fact that the Federal Supreme Court in 2011 ruled that Google " thumbnails" must show called thumbnails in search results.
On March 22, 2013, the Federal Council approved the introduction of a performance property rights for press publishers.
Discussion
Performance rights already exist for some other subject-matter by copyright law. You are in § § 70 et seq UrhGVorlage: regulated § § / Maintenance / juris - side. In a press release of the Federal Association of German Newspaper Publishers ( BDZV ) of 7 May 2009, the demand for a related right for press publishers was justified, " that the press operators at a gratuitous advantage of their offers would have to put on the internet to defend ." In the coalition agreement, this requirement has been taken. There it is in line 4776:
"Publishers should be no worse off in the online environment than other business brokers. We therefore aim at creation of a neighboring right for press publishers to improve the protection of newspapers and the Internet. "
In a speech at the Congress of the newspaper BDZV in September 2011, Chancellor Angela Merkel said that an intellectual property right is in preparation:
" Laying Generic services cost money and time. So I can well understand that a power law protection for publishers is required. Therefore, the Federal Government is currently working on a bill that will continue to adapt copyright to the requirements of a modern information society. We have not forgotten it; it is being driven. We strive for a balanced arrangement that reflects the legitimate interests of all parties concerned. "
In addition, Merkel announced that advance these efforts at the European level.
On 5 March 2012, the coalition committee of the Federal Government agreed to introduce an intellectual property right for press publishers in the Third basket of the reform of copyright. Commercial use of newspapers in the Internet should be free of charge within one year time especially for search engines and news aggregators. Collection and distribution of royalties to perceive a collecting society. Open is still where the boundary between the paid -commercial use and private use is to run that will be free to continue.
On 14 June 2012 it was announced that a draft law of the Federal Ministry of Justice has been sent to the intellectual property right of ministries and lobby groups. This design, which provides that in the copyright law, the paragraph should be inserted 87f to 87h, circulated on the Internet.
On August 29, 2012, the Federal Cabinet adopted a modified bill, which is practically oriented only on search engines on the Internet and all other possible users of press products will no longer have any influence.
An introduced by pirates politician Bruno Kramm on August 16, 2012 petition in the German Bundestag urged the rejection of power protection law. The subscription period ended on 10 October 2012. Quorum of 50,000 signatures was not achieved.
On November 27, 2012, the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law has pronounced in a statement to the related right.
The case for an intellectual property right
For a related right for press publishers, they argue that if it were a gap in protection, since other recyclers such as record companies would have an intellectual property right already. The intellectual property right is also necessary to protect press publishers before an unfair yields its capacity by the search engines. Internet portals generate significant advertising revenue and employ aggregators, but keeping the work results of journalists use, which in turn are paid for by publishers. Therefore, the publishers stand a share to those advertising revenue.
The Federal Association of German Newspaper Publishers believes the prosecution of copyright is no longer possible in a systematic exploitation of the press content. As an economic argument declining sales of newspapers, weekly newspapers and magazines from around 14 billion euros in 2000 to 11 billion euro in 2009 and the shift are given to online media.
Arguments against an intellectual property right
Against a power protection law is put forward press publishers were already sufficiently protected by copyright. In addition, each publisher could secure its information offerings by not free, this on the internet. In addition, no one is obliged to capture his lyrics by search engines, and could control their detection by a simple indexing exclusion or even exclude. It can also, if desired, a preview text is turned off. A listing in Part services (eg Google News ) may also be blocked.
It is further argued that the one who manufactures its products free of charge on the Internet, can not prohibit the free flow of such content. Behind a related right lurk the more or less hidden demand for a fee collection system, which implies a transnational bureaucratic monster which, not least the very difficult demarcation between the powers of traditional media companies and those of other actors in the information sector (about Blogger ) would have to make. The intellectual property right lead in the result thus a kind of tax to which the business models of the press publishers are to be supported.
Furthermore, statistical analyzes showed that there is high overlap in the traditional media online presence, so that the per - argument to the risk of damaging democracy "Information thinning " is refuted. Instead, a differentiation of the publishing world will realized among other things through blogs.
Critics often use the comparison, the related right for press publishers is similar to cost, as would the Yellow Pages compensation to the companies included in it pay.
The RSS format is also threatened by current designs in its existence. The provider of a feed reader as, can subscribe at the user RSS feeds, might have to the contents of all newspaper providers in Germany to license, even if only a fraction of users actually subscribe to the particular RSS feed. Since the labeling of licensed content in the source code is not compulsory, the feed reader has no way to allow only royalty-free feeds. The federal government has responded evasively to questions on the legal implications of RSS that will apply the general, abstract rules after the adoption of the law to specific facts and will decide on the interpretation of the power protection law the courts.
In general, this lack of labeling is also a major criticism of the intellectual property right. The journalist Mario Sixtus described as a scenario that is produced in the journalistic content of low quality and indexed by Google; But royalties are noted only in the terms and conditions. Since the terms and conditions can not be realized automatically and understood by machines and accordingly, Google would now have to hire employees who regularly check the terms and conditions of all indexed websites to sudden price increases, there is hardly appears possible because of the huge index size of Google.
Votes against
IGEL
The initiative describes itself:
" IGEL opposes an intellectual property right, because it is neither necessary nor justified and would have serious implications for the interests of others and the common good. "
Many supporters publish critical articles about the related right in magazines, newspapers and blogs.
As the first publisher said Georg Schaffer from Donaukurier in Ingolstadt on 26 March 2012 compared to the related right out.
Max - Planck -Institut
The Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law published on November 27, 2012, an opinion on the intellectual property right that has been signed by the German Association for Intellectual Property and Copyright Law as well as 18 leading professors. It emphasizes that the use of Textauschnitten ( snippets ) is already regulated at present generally in copyright law, very short snippets usually did not reach the necessary protection for original authorship. Referring to various judgments of the Federal Supreme Court is shown that a free publication on the Internet without any technical protection measures of tacit consent to the use of snippets equivalent by search engines.
The Institute believes that publishers will make even the entry into force of the law of their legal ban any use, since this would be the one hand already with " simple technical means " possible, and the publishers are on the other hand relies on the linking by Google. It is also pointed to the danger that the related right smaller players could limit their actions. As a result, it could lead to a strong reduction of links to German Press Products.
Rights should not be introduced for economic reasons, according to the Institute, as search engines do not impeded the ability of the press publishers to put their own content to the Internet. Instead, search engines would promote the discoverability of press products.
The Institute is the question of why content publishers should be treated differently from content of other actors that would also be based on investment. It is believed that the law would create additional legal uncertainty, since the definitions of " media outlet " and their " commercial use " are too vague. Up to the supreme court clarified various Internet services could adjust their service in Germany or not have even begun. In addition, we see a conflict between authors and publishing rights. So now it was within the authority and jurisdiction of the publishing house, whether products would show up in a search engine, even if the author is of a different opinion. A " directly enforceable legal protection against the publisher ," the author has accordingly not.
Finally, it is assumed that the proposed ancillary rights for press publishers " idle " will. Publishers would not want to be removed from search indexes, search engines, however, at the same time would not be willing to pay royalties for snippets. This could lead to the award of free licenses and thus a high cost, no direct added value. The Institute concludes that the related right would " always to the detriment of the German economy " and penalize domestic users. The government's draft 'll be " by no objective argument to justify ," therefore lacked "any basis to adopt the proposed rule ."
More votes against
The youth organizations of almost all parties, namely the Junge Union, the Young Socialists, the Green Youth, the Young Liberals and the boys pirates have rejected the intellectual property right in a joint statement. You write: " It is inconceivable to us that the legislature follows the argumentation of the publishers' associations ".
Even within the parties supporting the law, so the CDU and the FDP, there are dissenting votes. The Union MPs Siegfried Kauder described the intellectual property right as a " sham", will be absorbed when the profits of a company and supplied to others what a kind of Google tax corresponds. Also CSU politician Dorothee Bär has spoken out against it. She says the bill would lead to significant restrictions of communication in the 21st century, one side representing interests and harm the location Germany. The FDP deputy Jimmy Schulz calls instead of the ancillary copyright robots.txt recognized as legally binding.
On February 16, 2013, the Lower Saxony FDP rejected the related right for publishers on their 71 state convention in Ilsede with a significant majority.
The German Association of Journalists called on 28 February, the MPs to refuse to assent to this bill, because the interests of copyright holders would not be considered sufficient.
Gerald Spindler, a law professor at the University of Göttingen writes clearly: " The bill is unanimously rejected by German copyright law to learning " and refers to him as " unsystematic ".
Even the Federation of German Industry (BDI) has spoken out against the related right, as companies threaten a " incalculable licensing requirement ."
The German Bar Association writes in an opinion that the reasons given for the introduction of a power protection law arguments are not convincing. Furthermore, it is criticized that the risk that the protection intended as new legal idles in practice, but at the same time restricts the performance of socially useful activities such as, for example, search engines only on the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany.
The Office of the Trade Representative of the United States is currently examining a display of the Computer & Communications Industry Association. This is especially criticized an artificially constructed barrier to market entry as well as a subsidy model for press publishers at the expense of other enterprises, which in principle corresponds to a control. The power protection law also violates the Berne Convention, which states:
" It shall be Permissible to make quotations from a work Which Has already been lawfully made available to the public without royalty provided did Their making is compatible with fair practice, and Their extent size limit did justified by the purpose, including quotations from newspaper articles and periodicals in the form of press summaries. "
So-called press tour shows are so expressly allowed here. In the case of recognition of the display threaten trade sanctions for Germany. The so-called Special 301 report usually contains only states whose monopoly law enforcement does not go far enough. With Germany could for the first time a country included in the list because it assigns appropriate monopoly rights.
Google Inc. launched in November 2012, the campaign Defend your network. The objective is that to contact the users at their respective members of parliament, so that it will vote against the legislation. This campaign was described by Publisher page as " counter-productive "; Google Tarne its own interests as a public good and try to maintain its non-transparent business model.
Criticism of media reporting
The media coverage of the intellectual property right has been widely criticized. The media journalist Stefan Niggemeier published this about several episodes entitled Lies for power protection law, in which he sharply criticized the media, especially in terms of censorship and misinformation.
That left about the critical, signed by 18 professors opinion on the intellectual property right of the Max Planck Institute in spite of several dpa messages largely unnoticed, while reported other fringe supporters.
It was also often claimed that Google would take over the content publishers illegally. One in the Main-Post and Augsburger Allgemeine article claimed about:
" The American Internet giant collects texts without regard for copyright and publishing rights in special news portals. "
However, publishers Google may at any time deny access with the help of the robots.txt. Furthermore, is not violated by Snippets copyright. It is also possible to turn off the snippets, but still appear in the search results. Also a special registration by completing a form on Google is necessary for Google News.
From Handelsblatt was further spread the claim that Google search results censored " for hours " in his favor and Google - critical articles and reports on the debate away from the intellectual property right have.
The Association of German Magazine Publishers also claimed that the number of supporters of the law exceeds the number of critics. But while excluding publishers no other supporters of the law are known, it was rejected by many industry associations and organizations.
Reactions to the introduction
Before the power protection law came into force on 1 August 2013, Google Germany had turned to the press publisher in June 2013. This should tell Google whether they waive all rights under the law on Google News and grant him free license. Otherwise, their content would no longer listed as of August 1 in Google News; However, in the normal search, they remained. In support led to Google, that every month six billion users click on Google News worldwide on the pages of media and Google therefore mean a real added value for the publisher.
Shortly before the entry into force of the power protection law was announced on July 30, 2013, that many of the strongest supporters of the law, including the publishing companies, Axel Springer, Burda and FAZ, agreed by accepting the required Google " opt-in " another gratuitous listing in Google News have.