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Comment by magicalist | Hacker News Reader

Seems like the difference is they can't come to an agreement with publishers this time: "This new legislation requires every Spanish publication to charge services like Google News for showing even the smallest snippet from their publications, whether they want to or not"

(though of course they may be overstating the requirement)

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Google should charge for listing, and it would be a nice coincidence - totally random of course, that the amount they charge is exactly the same as the amount they have to pay.

Kind of like what amazon did when France forced them to charge shipping.

They closed that loophole. Google would have to pay to a third party (equivalent of the American RIAA, essentially), but they would have to charge the individual websites.

Side note: there was no loophole for Amazon and shipping in France, just good PR that made people think there was.

Eh? Explain please.

They made a law of no free shipping, so Amazon charged 0.01 for shipping. Seems like a loophole to me.

France has fixed price for books, with at most a 5% discount from the price fixed by the editor.

For online merchant, the law allowed the 5% discount to apply only on shipping and shipping can't be free.

So it doesn't matter if amazon shipping is 1cts or 1 eur, as long as it costs less than 5% it is free for the customer. But while shipping is still free, they now have to sell more expensive books.

From the point of view of the government the law worked as intended and there is no loophole, amazon and online booksellers just became more expensive than offline shops (since they can have both free shipping and 5% discount).

Personally if find that amazon played very well there, they managed to have the public perceive as a win what was a total loss.

It´s actually no overstatement. The law includes a clause specifically to avoid that, stating that paying the tax is an "inalienable right". Of course, as the law reads, it´s more an obligation that a right... As a spanish citizen, I´m equally ashamed and enraged of this old-fashioned, short-sighted and conservative law.

What makes it conservative? The law seems quite disruptive to me.

It is conservative in that it tries to preserve the current order.

Of course, as with most such conservative stupidities, it fails by not understanding how the current order actually work.

Considering the "current order" is Google News existing and as a result it doesn't anymore, that fits the disruptive tag perfectly.

It wants to go back 10-15 years - not create a new order as is usually implied by the word disruptive. Reactionary might be the best word for it.

For the people making these laws, Google is a disruptive force that menaces the established business models.

Wow. I imagine this also affects sites like Topix. What a shame. If one wanted to get news from Spain, or any other country with similar laws, how would one search on a topic, DMOZ?

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