Germany passes tighter copyright law

The German Bundestag, or lower house of the parliament, approved a bill on Friday to tighten copyright protection for material used on the Internet. Lawmakers voted in favor of the copyright law by a vote of 293 to 243, with three abstentions. It is now up to the upper house of the parliament to vote for the bill's final approval. According to the new legislation, publishers retain the exclusive right of use of their online content for one year, requiring internet search engines to acquire a licence in order to republish original content. Guenter Krings, vice-chairman of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) parliamentary group, cited financial losses for publications as the reason to update the current copyright law in the age of the Internet. "This wasn't necessary when papers used to appear only in print form," said Krings. However, the bill allows the use of "single words or small text passages" without royalties, easing search engines' concerns that the law would charge them for displaying search results with snippets of original text. But the length of one such free-of-charge snippet is not defined in the bill. Search engine company Google has campaigned against the law. The firm said in a statement on Friday that "the best outcome for Germany would be no new legislation because it threatens innovation, particularly for start-ups."