Dive Brief:
- Google is being sued by VG Media, a group of German news publishers, under a strict German "Ancillary Copyright" law that passed in 2013.
- In the lawsuit, the publishers are using the statute to attempt to force Google to pay them for showing their content in search results.
- Separately, one member of the group, media company Axel Springer, took ad blocking tech firm Blockr to court in November hoping to stop the software developer from "offering, advertising, maintaining and distributing the app."
Dive Insight:
Germany is well known for its strict digital standards, such as placing businesses under some of the toughest online privacy regulations around. In 2013 it passed an "Ancillary Copyright" law and VG Media is using that regulation to sue Google for showing its members' content in search results. The group is demanding payment when users are presented with those search results.
The law was crafted after lobbying from publishers including Axel Springer and was designed to allow publishers to collect licensing fees any time too much of their content was presented beyond a limit that wasn’t clearly defined in the law.
This is the fifth claim VG Media has made against Google. Two have been won by Google and the other three are still being contested.
Although Google is clearly the target of VG Media’s wrath – and its lobbyist-built copyright law – the larger lesson for marketers working in international marketplaces is to make sure and understand the various data handling, privacy and other regulations in those markets. So far only large companies like Google have faced any government sanctions or private lawsuits like VG Media’s against Google, but running afoul of any regulations could end up very damaging. If the laws in are in place, they might be enforced at any time.