Lenox

Like many people who write a blog, I use short quotes from other sites with their corresponding link. I write a weekly newsletter with useful news for home-owners, with no advertising or 'puffs', and as useful items appear on the Internet, then I'll link to them for the Reader's further reference.
As any blogger, writer, Facebook user or even forum user would.
Now the Spanish Government - in its idiocy - is passing the so-called 'Google Tax' through parliament. This obliges those who use 'non-significant fragments' - that's just a few words, together with a link - to pay a special tax... not to the person or site who was quoted, but to a union of Spain's daily newspapers called the AEDE.
This is because the newspapers circulation is plummeting (El Mundo copy-sales down 18% in one year); the content is broadly pro-Government (in exchange for institutional advertising); because more readers are looking for non-establishment news (often more honest) and because the media, simply put, have the power to corrupt the system.
Will Google, which provides a news service, merely stop this service for Spain? Do newspapers - the establishment ones - use Google's services, free? Is this another form of Government censorship? Probably, yes and yes.

Madridboy

Newspaper circulation has been going down for years. It's to be expected, as you rightly point out...many are biased and print their "version" of the "truth". We're in an electronic age now where news is instantly available with the option to see all points of view which allows us to make our own minds up on what is and what isn't the truth. I wonder if google are fighting this, surely if this was legitimately legal then the law would be the same all over Europe.
Personally I don't see the problem, if someone posts a link I go to that link and therefore see the original post made in that online newspaper.
Print is on it's way out, I know this as I've spent the best part of the last 25 years working in it. My last job was printing La Ultima Hora in Menorca.......they dropped the Menorca version 3 months after I left the printers.

amideislas

We live in an environment of "protectionism". It is considered "unfair" that consumer trends have adverse effects on existing businesses that are unwilling or unable to keep up with those trends. You can find thousands of examples of things we subsidise with tax money that in truth, have no business being in business simply because they cannot keep up with market trends and/or competition in those markets.

Unions' basic existence is to ensure people keep their jobs, even if they are in the business of selling ice to Eskimos. Surely, it's in the public interest that such businesses should not be required to compete. After all, that could be "unfair" to those who'd rather continue selling ice to eskimos.

No, I seriously doubt it's about "censorship" but more about "protecting" the business from "unfair" competition, by subsidising the "old way" without regard to the realities of the modern age (and to justify a bit more tax revenue in the process).

After all, it's not [the union or the publisher's] fault that the public doesn't buy much paper anymore. And it's apparently not in the public interest to force Spanish news orgs to adapt to consumer trends that the public so widely adopts. Besides, it provides yet another reason for the unions to justify yet another ridiculous subsidy - for the "common good".