Ancillary copyright law. This word is currently appearing more and more frequently. What does that mean?
On June 20, the European Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee will decide on copyright reforms . These reforms also include the ancillary copyright law for press publishers, based on the German model. This is a tightening of copyright law that will ultimately prohibit article previews , for example on Facebook or Twitter , and will also ensure that some search engine results can no longer be displayed .
The aim is to prevent internet companies such as Google or Facebook from displaying publishers' content free of charge and thereby preventing the publishers from earning any money. The pro argument here is that the publishers need to be strengthened. The publishers should not be inferior to Google, Facebook or Twitter Co., for example. The argument is that these same corporations would use journalistic content on a massive scale and make money from it.
With this initiative, as well as a network filter linked to it, which is intended to check content live for copyright violations and block it if necessary, as soon as it is uploaded, the company says it wants to adapt copyright to digitalization and also secure the financial future of publishers by allowing the Internet platforms to display it of small text excerpts or so-called snippets. The simple teaser, the article preview as you see it in the news feed, would therefore require a license.
Now what does this all mean?
Before you break down ancillary copyright law and the reform of copyright law into these few points, it must of course be made clear that this is a much more complex subject area in which many interest groups naturally have their say. Of course, some of the arguments and metaphors come up, but there are also important arguments regarding copyrights that have been weakly protected to date. To protect copyrights, platform operators should also use upload filters that check for copyright violations when uploading content and, if in doubt, block it.
The Commission submitted the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on copyright in the digital single market to the Council on September 14, 2016 . The proposed directive is one of the Commission's initiatives under the Digital Single Market. This reform, if passed, would of course initially leave open questions. For example, if Google doesn't want to pay for parts of text to be displayed in search engines, will Google no longer display this content in the future?
There is already a dilemma at this level, because journalistic content could become orphaned online because no one can simply find it anymore. And not just on Google, but also on Facebook, where the majority of readers who access online content currently come from because it appears in their news stream via teasers. A teaser, i.e. an article preview, would no longer be possible in the usual form without having to pay for it. As a result, companies should forego teasers for publishing products or no longer display them as search results.
In return, this of course means a lack of traffic at this point, and at the same time publishing products, which represent an important element of information and also represent an elementary counterweight to manipulation and disinformation, no longer reach the general public online.
On the other hand, one should not forget that a well-formulated common directive at EU level also creates a certain level of assertiveness against corporations.
A lot of criticism
The ancillary copyright law to this extent received a lot of criticism, which also came from consumer advocates and continues to come from it. To this extent, critics speak of a “link tax” that would be imposed on corporations. The associated upload filter also represents over-regulation, because this filter evaluates which content can be published and which cannot. Including non-transparent error rates. This is where terms like “censorship machine” appear.
These upload filters, which can be used by platforms, are considered particularly critical . According to critics, there is a risk that overly cautious filters could prevent unauthorized content from being published. According to critics, that would be an infringement on freedom of expression. Valid point: how do upload filters distinguish between quotes and copyright infringement, for example?
A case that became quite popular was not that long ago, when the YouTube filter mistakenly punished the real author after an RTL broadcast focused on excerpts from the protest song “Not Heidi's Girl” and placed a digital fingerprint on the entire broadcast. The upload filter thereby turned the actual rights holder into a copyright violator.
But it's not just the upload filters, but also the affordability of such a filter. Or even the affordability of an alternative that would involve platform providers concluding licenses with rights holders. Here the large platforms win again, smaller platforms on which user content can be published are likely to have problems.
Recently, more than 100 members of the European Parliament called for the planned ancillary copyright to be completely deleted in an open letter. In the letter, they express concern about the impact that the introduction of an ancillary copyright for press publishers could have on access to news and information and would affect citizens' access to high-quality news and information (compare: More than a hundred MEPs oppose new publishers right ).
Legitimate interests
Ultimately, however, ancillary copyright law and the reform ideas for copyright law have justified reasons and goals. One of these goals is to create a uniform, high level of protection for rights holders across Europe. Copyrights should remain copyrights because, especially when using social media, the feeling has been lost that certain content, graphics and works are simply subject to the copyright of another person who actually needs to be compensated for their use.
If you think it's stupid, at the latest when you yourself are affected because someone else simply shares the photo you took yourself or the painstakingly created text and even presents it as your own work, that changes. Of course, it's also possible here to a certain extent about a prevailing free mentality, which we know in an unprecedented way from the Internet.
And this free mentality must now be seen in relation to music, videos, but also journalistic works from which the people behind them have to make a living. Here, platform operators could also avoid an upload filter and copyright infringements for the benefit of their users by concluding appropriate contracts with collecting societies that provide for remuneration for authors.
It should become even clearer if you look at the legal opinions of US corporations that are imposed on European citizens due to their use of the Internet. Here, Europe as a closed structure can of course protect the interests of its own citizens with much more force.
The big question...
Is it the end of the internet as we know it? At least not on June 20th , although an important decision has already been made here.
However, this decision does not yet have legal force, because it will take a while before the relevant laws are actually drawn up at the participating state level.
At the same time, it also shows that this issue is far more complex and that a lobby competes with an anti-lobby, but perhaps even an anti-lobby lobby. There are many voices on this topic, and the open letter already mentioned with the over 100 signatory members of the European Parliament is particularly interesting. These 107 initial signatories are members from seven different political groups, which shows that there is cross-party interest in the issue.
If a majority in the Legal Affairs Committee votes in favor of the planned ancillary copyright for press publishers, an individual vote on the heavily criticized Articles 11 and 13 could certainly be scheduled. Since the result could be extremely close, critics in parliament are unlikely to fall silent immediately.
So, from the first important decision to a truly radical Internet law is a long path that doesn't have to be straight. The draft has been subject to constant revisions; the current version contains a rather vague interpretation of the license-free text excerpts, which is based on the approach of “insubstantial parts of a press publication” on page 30 .
Annoying: How much does it affect who?
And then the problem of legal uncertainty arises again, has already irritated many people in the GDPR and ECJ It must be further differentiated that these topics have no direct connection, but they have an impact on people simply because of their close successive publication period.
The Internet, with all its facets of freedom of information and lively communication exchange, is increasingly being burdened with regulatory ballast. The freedom that anyone could become a broadcaster without regulations is increasingly decreasing, or existing micro-channels (which every participant on social media ultimately is in a way) have to adhere to the same guidelines and laws as large publishing houses do . Here, too, it has not yet been clearly defined who is affected by the rules and who falls under exceptional rules.
This is again particularly annoying and again seems like a law or a guideline that is intended to be thrown into the population as a beta version. Although the original idea is definitely justified.
What it means: every person who has an interest in this topic should at least get a comprehensive picture. It is important to listen to both advocates and critics. You have to be aware of the risks, but also not lose sight of the benefits. In the end, no one should say they didn't know anything. There are also opportunities to have your say. For example, there are options for objection, as described in an article on T3N ( compare ). And… maybe a completely different solution will be found in the end.
Excursus: Ignorance & Clickbait
In some cases, we noticed that the ancillary copyright was partly based on an incorrect interpretation of the teasers on social media. The clumsy statement that Facebook, Google or Twitter “steal” journalistic content and make money from it is not entirely true to this extent and indicates a lack of knowledge about how a teaser is created on social media.
For example, a teaser on Facebook is not a form of content theft, but rather a consciously created communication opportunity FOR the content provider via the teaser. A teaser is the preview function of linked content in social media. This means that a social network, such as Facebook, summarizes linked content in the form of a teaser. This consists of three elements: a thumbnail (1), a heading (2) and a subtitle (3).
Website operators can consciously construct this representation and define it using the metadata in the source text. These are read by, for example, Facebook or Google. Depending on what you wrote there, the teaser shown on social media can differ from the subsequent content or be deliberately designed to be provocative. If Facebook does not find any predefined content in the metatext and instead highlights a part of the article's content at this point, it means that the content provider has not formulated this function in order to provide Facebook with an appropriate summary of the content and an attractive preview image. As a provider, you even have the chance to use the teasers to encourage readers to read the linked content at the end.
Clickbait problem
Here, however, another anti-quality problem arises: clickbaiting (click bait: the creation of a curiosity gap using open bits of information and graphic elements)! Clickbaiting can be an art, but on the other hand, if used excessively and excessively, it can also become an information problem within quality journalism. Clickbaiting doesn't have to be a problem as long as you use it carefully and skillfully. You just have to build the teaser in a healthy relationship to the content behind it. In other words: Clickbait as much as I can, but please also provide appropriately good content! Clickbait usually consists of the following elements:
- Sensational headline
- Curiosity Gap
- Cliffhanger
- Graphical elements (arrow/circle etc.)
- emotions
A need is created to navigate to the linked content (click). Of course, typical clickbaiting also has a manipulative effect; in its publication “ Facts instead of Fakes ”, the New Responsibility Foundation classifies clickbaiting as dangerous, but clearly distinguishes it from fake news (pages 11 & 12).
The main problem here is that studies show that over 60% of readers usually only read the headline. Even if the exaggerated content is then refuted in the text, it is the headline that sticks with readers.
Of course, tabloid media in particular take advantage of this and exaggerate their teasers. In this respect, it is always important to recognize who is writing, how teasers work and how the individual elements work. If you know this, you can develop a certain resistance to clickbait, or you can tell from the exaggerated teaser that you are only getting a morsel of information.
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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )


