Ancillary copyright (Leistungsschutzrecht) for press publishers Discussions – offside

The Sponge is Gone, What Remains is Granite

When I announced at the time that I would not publish links or quotes from journalistic press releases, a colleague thought it unnecessary – after all, I am “definitely non-commercial”. However, if you read the comments in the draft, you can only say: far from it.

Blogs are a popular topic in the draft, and it is clearly stated that even advertising banners and Flattr buttons are commercial and subject to license. In no way does the draft intend to make the whole thing dependent on the extent, because “whether the blogger intends to make a profit from the advertising” is irrelevant.

Incidentally, simple links should remain free of charge as long as you do not show parts of the article. For the corresponding landing pages, this would be a nice search engine optimization. But your own readers would not be receiving any small service. What should they imagine under the article?

Thanks, but no thanks. Paying by profession

Sounds difficult? It gets even more difficult. If you run a blog connected to your professional activity, you may be able to benefit a little from the law – but for “the online use of third-party press products, you must purchase a license”. Again, not a word is said about at which point someone actually starts blogging professionally, and whether this question is considered relevant at all.

In concrete terms, this means that anyone who covers topics related to their profession must expect to be liable for payment. This applies for as long as the legislator considers press products to be worthy of protection – namely one year. Those who simply ignore press products in their blog, as I have been doing for some time, have a clear advantage. And it is best to do the same directly in other social media.

A gag on freedom of expression?

Now, press products are not just any products. They enjoy a special status as an expression of freedom of speech, that precious good of democracy. And so, they are indeed one of the foundations for a democratic exchange of opinions. In this regard, the draft law remains frighteningly contradictory. A small sample:

The ancillary copyright even protects small parts of the press product.

versus

The flow of information on the internet will not be affected by the proposed regulation.

How can that be reconciled? If even a small part of a headline is to be subject to a fee, it will inevitably affect the flow of information – especially for small players who cannot just open their wallets.

So, this is how it is supposed to be, this ancillary copyright: a law not only against the big money-makers on the internet, but against all users who want to share, quote and critically question content – as long as they fall within the legislator’s broad definition of “commercial or professional use”. Of course, the press publishers are looking for ways to finance their valuable work – but with a law against democratic exchange and their own users, they can only lose.