2014年10月西班牙议会批准新知识产权法，定于2015年1月生效。根据这项法规，西班牙新闻机构可以向“谷歌新闻”收取相关费用，因此，又名“谷歌税”。2014年12月中旬，谷歌关闭谷歌新闻西班牙站点。半年后，由西班牙期刊协会（AEEPP）发布的一份报告显示，谷歌税恶果显现。西班牙互联网使用量续墙，但报业网站访问量下降，其中小型媒体网站受打击最大。与此同时，一批整合新闻网站关闭。
连线杂志：谷歌新闻关门，西班牙媒体愚蠢的胜利
2014-12-17 09:09
不出所料，谷歌毫不手软地关闭了谷歌新闻西班牙站的大门，西班牙媒体网站流量骤减。上图为 gigaom.com 发布的其中一张图片。绿线为上周同一天的流量图示，蓝线为关站当天的图示。
gigaom的相关标题是，谷歌关门后前往西班牙新闻站点的外部流量骤减。其引述专家的话说，对西班牙50个媒体站的监测显示，一般流量下降幅度达到两位数。
华尔街日报说，谷歌关站后，流量呈现小幅下降。
连线杂志的长篇述评说：谷歌新闻关门，西班牙媒体愚蠢的胜利。
福布斯杂志的标题是：真快，西班牙全面撤退！（That Was Fast; Spain Already In Full Retreat Over GoogleTax）
彭博在谷歌西班牙关站后，进行了长达4分多钟的连线报道，结合德国的先例，请几位专家从不同角度进行了解读。结论呢？人们在关站之前事实上已经知道谁将是输家，谁将是赢家。
我的预言是，按照在德国的先例，谷歌新闻西班牙大门在西班牙媒体的集体要求下，不久将重新开启。因为，谷歌搜索在欧洲占据90%以上的份额。西班牙人需要真正面对的问题，不是那几个可怜的版权费用，而是自己的互联网生存空间已经被压扁了。
谷歌新闻预定今在西班牙“关门”，西班牙人学德国紧急喊停又露怯
新新媒体观察 2014-12-16 08:46
不久前在德国出现的谷歌新闻“开关门”事件重现，只是，这一次翻盘来得更快。谷歌新闻预定今天（西班牙时间12月16日）在西班牙“关门”，西班牙人学习德国同行紧急喊停又露怯！
据外电报道，2014年10月西班牙议会批准新知识产权法，定于明年1月生效。根据这项法规，西班牙新闻机构可以向“谷歌新闻”收取相关费用。谷歌在12月11日的一项声明中表示：“谷歌新闻”不刊登广告，本身没有收入，支付费用的做法不可持续。因此谷歌决定将西班牙媒体从“谷歌新闻”中移除，并在西班牙关闭“谷歌新闻”。
西班牙日报发行人协会（The Spanish Association of Daily Newspaper Publishers ,AEDE ）上周末发布了一份声明，要求西班牙政府和欧盟进行干预，要求竞争主管机构切实保护西班牙公民和商业机构的利益。因为他们认为，谷歌新闻在市场上占据主导地位，谷歌新闻的关闭，会影响西班牙民众和商业机构的利益。
这可让谷歌有点犯难。是关，还是不关？
华尔街日报跟进报道说，西班牙政府星期一表示，目前各方没有进行任何谈判以避免计划中的谷歌新闻“关门”。
此前，同样的戏码在德国也曾经上演。德国的一些媒体机构针对谷歌发起法律行动，要求谷歌支付转载费用。谷歌的回应非常直接，马上关闭了相关服务。结果，德国相关媒体流量大减，最终不得不寻求和解。
德国、西班牙的谷歌故事，只是科技新媒体巨人与传统媒体间恩怨的继续。更戏剧性的下文，随时可以发生。
谷歌在欧洲搜索引擎市场占据90%的市场份额。欧洲人眼睁睁地看着这样的绝对垄断出现，本身就是一件匪夷所思的事情。接下来的被动戏码也就没有什么可以大惊小怪的了。
Study Of Spain's 'Google Tax' On News Shows How Much Damage It Has Done
As you may recall, governments across Europe, generally at the behest of traditional newspaper publishers, have been pushing for what they call an "ancillary copyright," but which is much better referred to as a "snippet tax" or a "link tax." Or, if people are being honest: a Google News tax. The idea is that any aggregator site that is linking out to other sources with little snippets telling people what's at the link, has topaythe original publication to link to them. If you think this goes against the entire concept of the internet, you're not wrong. Belgium was the first country to try it, and Google responded by removing complaining publications from Google News. In response, the publications thencomplainedthat Google News was being mean to them, even though they were the ones complaining. In Germany, a similar thing happened, whereby Google left the complaining publications in Google News, but without snippets since that was a key aspect of the law. Again, the publishers screamed "unfair" even though they were the ones who had pushed for the law in the first place.
When it came time for Spain to try to appease its misguided and angry publishers, the government sought to avoid the tactics that Google had done in the past and thusmade it mandatoryto pay, saying that sites themselves couldn't even opt-out of getting payments, even if they didn't want them. In response to this, Google broke out the somewhat surprising "nuclear option" and shut down Google News in Spain entirely. It seemed quite obvious that this move would create huge problemsfor media properties thatwantedto be open andwantedpeople to link to them.
After the law went into effect, the Spanish Association of Publishers of Periodical Publications (AEEPP) commissioned an economic study about the impact of the new Spanish ancillary copyright law -- and found (not surprisingly) that the legal change (and the shuttering of Google News and other aggregators) was absolutely harmful to the Spanish news media and innovation in general. It also found strong evidence that, contrary to what those fighting against Google News have claimed, aggregatorsexpand the marketfor the original sources, rather than shrink it by acting as a substitute. The latter is based on a "study of studies" basically, looking at all of the academic literature in terms of the impact of aggregators --allof which shows that it increases the overall size of the market, rather than shrinks it.
However, the really telling part of the report is that this law that was passed in the name ofhelpingnews publications, ended up doing tremendous harm to many online publications -- especially smaller sites that frequently (and happily) relied on Google News and other aggregators for a significant amount of traffic. The report points out that it wasn't just Google News that shut down because of this law: a whole bunch of local Spanish aggregators shut down themselves, switched business models entirely, or similarly left the Spanish market entirely. The report notes that sites like Planeta Ludico, NiagaRank, InfoAliment and Multifriki shut down entirely, as they were scared of the economic and legal liability from the new law. The report notes the case of NiagaRank is particularly troubling as it has a wider impact on innovation in Spain:
NiagaRank: ignoring the extent, quantity and methods followed to determine whether they should pay the fee, they preferred to close down. This case is remarkable because NiagaRank was not a “traditional” aggregator, but it analysed social networks to draw up lists with the most relevant news (“active listening”, as they used to call it). However, it is an example of the legal uncertainty that the lack of definition of key aspects of the act has caused.
[....]
For example, and as already pointed out, currently there are several services focused on the aggregation of content for mobile phones, such as the mobile applications Zite and Flipboard. The amendment to the act will discourage the introduction of this sort of services in Spain, as well as the potential development of new models. A clear example of this situation is the portal NiagaRank, an innovative aggregator based on the analysis of the content published on social networks (similar to News360 or Prismatic) which, as mentioned before, also closed down as a direct result of the law amendment.
And all of this has had a tremendousnegativeimpact on the press, rather than a positive one as those behind the law insisted.
The negative impact on the online press sector is also very clear, since a very important channel to attract readers disappears, resulting in lower revenues from advertising. In addition, the new fee is also a barrier to the expansion of small publications with little-known brands, and an entry barrier for new competitors, since they will be unable to count on these platforms to increase their readers’ base.
The evidence available so far shows that the impact on traffic has been negative and that less consolidated publishing titles, such as digital native newspapers, have been the worst affected. This is not only because the total number of publication readers has been reduced but, in the case of online readers that would be attracted anyway (that is, who would visit the publications web sites in some other way), they will surely end up visiting known publications with established brands, to the detriment of small and new publications, in line with the evidence in the literature analysed above
Of course, for the major newspaper publishers, maybe that's what they really wanted all along: less competition. But it's difficult to see how that's a legitimate public policy strategy.
And, not surprisingly, looking at multiple different ways of measuring these things, traffic to all Spanish news sites dropped after the law went into effect:
A simple traffic analysis of Spanish digital newspapers in the first three months of 2015 based on data from ComScore also suggests results in line with the aforementioned. The impact of the closing down of Google News and some other aggregators has generated a decline of visitors to the 84 major Spanish online newspapers...
The report notes that this is even more stunning given that overall internet traffic and usage in Spain has beenincreasing, so even the percentage drop in traffic undercounts the real impact, as it likely would have been growing.
The data, not surprisingly, shows that the impact on smaller news publishers has been the worst -- again consistent with the idea that all this law really does is lock out competition for the larger players:
A more detailed analysis, breaking down traffic depending on the newspaper size, also confirms that the effect has been uneven. Thus, for the sample of online newspapers in Spain, it appears that smaller newspapers have been the worst affected ones.
All of this should really raise serious questions about just what is the intent of the Spanish government in passing this law. It does not appear to serve any legitimate public policy. Atbest, it appears to have damaged small news publications, making it more difficult for them to compete against larger publications, though it has also served to damage those larger publications' traffic as well.
