Journalism Still Matters: A debate over content aggregation has pitted Google against Germany’s biggest publishing houses
Google strikes back. Several German publishing houses have been advocating a so-called “Leistungsschutzrecht” (which might roughly be translated as “performance protection claim”) which would require search engines to obtain special permission and pay licensing fees before publishing excerpts on websites like Google News. Proponents of the idea argue that Google makes money of its data aggregation services - and should thus pay those who provide the content. Last week, Google launched its counter-attack. Online, in print, and by highlighting the issue on its German portal google.de.
Google’s offensive does not surprise. If we believe the warnings of the search engine giant, at stake is nothing less than the freedom of “my” internet. We’re all part of this fight, whether we want it or not.
In “my” personal snippet of the internet, i.e. in my newsfeed and among the people I follow on Twitter, emotions run high indeed. Two topics dominate the discussion: For several days, the “death” of newspapers and concerns about a world without printed broadsheets have been on the rise again. The other hot topic: The “freedom of the internet” and the alliance that users like myself apparently ought to forge with Google to defend the web against German publishers.
The “death of the newspaper” is less threatening to many online opinion leaders than, say, the death of endangered species or forests. Many online activists seem to believe that newspapers falter because the product they offer is no longer in demand.