In December 2014, Google News was closing in Spain. The Association of Spanish Newspaper Editors had even asked the European Union for mediation to prevent this from happening. But the one in Mountain View claimed to be against the decision of the Spanish government at that time, with its Copyright regulations or Intellectual Property.
Now, after several years and a new Royal Decree published on November 3 in the BOE, Google News is going to return to Spain. The company, after the new regulations, has said that The ideal conditions seem to exist for a potential launch of Google News in Spain and shortly thereafter confirmed that this will happen in early 2022.
It should be remembered that today the Official State Gazette (BOE) collects the transposition of the Copyright directive, in a text now known as the ‘Iceta Law’, as Miquel Iceta is minister of culture. Now we know how the controversial article 17 that regulated the responsibility of platforms over hosted content will be applied, and that forced them to establish algorithmic filters on them so as not to receive large fines.
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Google statements regarding the news
The new directive, or new Intellectual Property law, is responsible for collecting everything stated in the European directive regarding this issue. In Spain, articles 15 and 17 of said European directive will be implemented, which automatically opens the door to the return of Google News.
In the one baptized as ‘Iceta Law’, the doors were opened yesterday (with the announcement of this Royal Decree) upon the return of Google News. Even with everything, this new law is also postulated as a content censoring system using algorithms, since they will be in charge of deciding what is censored and what is not without the need for human intervention or judicial control.
In this regard, Google itself has indicated that it has to analyze in detail this new law to make “decisions about our next steps.”
According to the information published today, “since the beginning of next year, Google News will provide links to useful and relevant news from a wide spectrum of sources, which will help the Spanish public to find more information on current news and to delve into the issues “, says a recently issued press release.
What is the Google News Showcase and how it intends to fight misinformation
In addition, another issue that Google Spain has spoken about today is disinformation. The intention is not only to offer information from reliable news sources, but also to make Google News “a key tool in the fight against disinformation,” they say from the company.
This start-up will involve a Google collaboration with the Spanish media. Those responsible for this service will work “with publishers to reach agreements that cover their rights under the new law,” according to Fuencisla Clemares, VP Google Iberia.
With this, Google has said today that it wants to offer in Spain Google News Showcase, which it describes as “a program of licensed products, which provides a new experience and pays publishers to produce specially curated content, intended for the Google News and Discover story panels. ”
The controversy of the previous law
The so-called Canon AEDE is the standard that the ‘Iceta Law’ now replaces. The controversy has been long. On the one hand, the media themselves had long been planning a future in which Google should pay the media to use its content on Google News. They alleged how they made money from this news service without investing anything in creating all that news and information that they disseminated.
Spanish media and agencies released a statement in which they explained that “Facebook has become the largest communication medium in the world, but neither Facebook nor Google have a press room, they don’t have journalists in Syria risking their lives, not an office in Zimbabwe investigating Mugabe’s departure, not editors to check and verify the information that reporters send from the field. “
However, the subsequent closure of Google News did bring about a drop in traffic for the media in general. Since Google helps as a speaker for them. Anyway, another thorny issue that arose in all this was that that law forced Google to pay the Canon AEDE to the management entity Cedro even if the media did not request it. It was an inalienable fee, and Cedro took a 15% commission for that management. This rule is now removed.
For its part, copyright issues They come now, in the ‘Iceta Law’, regulated as established by the European Union.