Ancillary copyright for press publishers

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The ancillary copyright for press publishers^[1] (German: Leistungsschutzrecht für Presseverleger) is a proposal incorporated in 2012 legislation proposed by the ruling coalition of the German government, led by Angela Merkel of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), to extend publishers' copyrights. The bill was agreed by the Cabinet at the end of August 2012 and submitted to parliament on 14 November 2012. It was passed by the Bundestag on 1 March 2013 by 293 to 243, following substantial changes in the week before the vote.

In its original form, the law would have forced Internet content providers to pay fees, collected by a central clearinghouse,^[2] to publishers for displaying their content: fees would have been levied for even short snippets of news made available by news aggregators and web search engines.^[3] The intended effect would have been to force Google, a leading search engine, to pay publishers fees for display of news search results, causing the bill to be dubbed a "Google tax" by some.^[4] It would give press agencies the exclusive right to publish press releases for commercial purposes on the Internet^{[5][clarification needed]} and would require search engines such as Google to obtain licenses for using small text passages.^[6] A Google spokesman called it "a black day for the Internet in Germany".^[7] Many trade associations regard it as useless^[8] and critics fear a reduction in diversity of opinion.^[9] Wikimedia Deutschland regards this as dangerous "for the creators of free content in general and for providers of open content platforms in particular".^[10] It was agreed between the coalition parties, the CDU and the FDP in their coalition agreement for the 17th session of the German Bundestag.

It passed in the Bundesrat March 22, 2013, was published in the Bundesgesetzblatt May 14, and came into force on August 1, 2013.

The publisher's right is the subject of an ongoing legal challenge by Google and has not yet generated significant revenue for German publishing groups.^[11]