Google will have to pay publishers for aggregating news in Spain

The fight between Google and news publishers is a story that’s been playing out for years. Publishers have argued that aggregation services — like Google News — are infringing on copyrighted material, while Google has said using pieces of news stories and linking to them is within the bounds of fair use. In Spain, there’s a new twist: the Spanish parliament has approved intellectual property laws that will allow publishers to charge aggregators for displaying news stories in search.

The law will go into effect on the first of next year, the Associated Press reports, but some details, like how much publishers will be able to charge, haven’t been decided. Spanish news publishers have been lobbying for the new IP laws, which are part of a broader push from the European Union to crack down on Google. Yesterday, incoming digital commissioner Günther Oettinger said he wanted similar laws passed across all of the EU.