Last June, the German legislator released the first draft of a new piece of legislation introducing neighbouring rights for publishers if their content is reproduced for ‘commercial purposes’. After the proposal was heavily protested by Internet freedom activists, bloggers and search engine companies, the legislator decided to revise his proposal. Now a second draft has been released, proposing far less restrictions than publishers sought, but still too profound according to opponents of the proposal.

Under the new proposed law, search engine providers and news aggregators will be required to pay a license fee for any portion of material already published on other German websites. An example of a website that reproduces content is Google News. Google News releases headlines and snippets of other news websites and links to the original source, which is currently covered under quotation rights or ‘fair use’ in Germany. 

Major German publishers support the proposal. They argue that neighbouring rights would safeguard their existing content while the collected licensing fees would allow them to make new investments in journalism. According to them, the use of their content for any commercial gain, whether this is offline or online, should be compensated. 

However, opponents of the proposal fear that the new law will hinder innovation on the internet. A Google spokesman says in an interview by Al Jazeera: “We fear that such a regulation would slow down the development of the Internet, because it creates additional costs and leads to inefficiencies.”  Dr Till Kreutzer, a copyright law expert at the Bureau for Information Law Expertise says: "The publishers see someone making money from the internet and they don't have an idea themselves - so let's get money from the search engines. Simple as that." According to him, the market for journalistic content - both online and offline - is changing, so the press publishers need to find new business models. 

Both sides seem to be in an irreconcilable struggle. Matthias Schindler of Wikimedia attended the hearings. “Right now, it seems everyone is unhappy with the second draft,” he says. "The publishers are unhappy because of the downsizing. The internet industry representatives are unhappy because of the uncertainty, the bloggers are unhappy. And since no-one anticipates any extra revenue coming out of this second version, the journalists are unhappy." 

In September 2013, Germany will have federal elections. Therefore, proponents of the amendment will have little time to push the proposal into law. According to Schindler, anything is possible, including sending the proposal back or shelving it. Nonetheless, this is an interesting case for legislators, businesses and Internet freedom activists, as it fuels the discussion about copyrights and finding new business models in the digital age. 

Read more about the German draft concerning neighbouring rights on Future of Copyright:

• German government to introduce copyright fee on aggregated content use

Sources: Tweakers, Aljazeera 

Written by: Nathalie Falot