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The ancillary copyright law (Leistungsschutzrecht) is casting its shadow: the Bundestag will debate it this week in its first reading. If the German Newspaper Publishers and Publishers Association is to be believed, this has a lot to do with shoplifting. Read on to find out why that is not true.

So there it is, the ancillary copyright. A done deal, search engines are to pay publishers license fees. An unprecedented fight against networking is imminent.

A few weeks ago, I already expressed my concerns regarding the ancillary copyright (Leistungsschutzrecht) for press publishers. The draft law that has now been made public shows that it also affects users and poses a threat to the democratic exchange of opinions.

Search engine optimization plays a vital role in our daily lifes on the internet. Hendrik Terbeck has published a bachelor thesis titled “The influence of social recommendations on the selection behavior with search engines” which tries to answer burning SEO questions using eye tracking and problem-centered interviews.

The coalition agrees that a ancillary copyright law for press publishers is essential to ask commercial linkers to pay. This is “a black day for copyright”, and there will be repercussions here as well.