Copyright Bill Could Let Publishers Charge for Excerpts in Germany

Posted: 30 Nov 2012 01:13 PM PST

The German Parliament is discussing a new copyright bill could allow publishers to charge search engines for publishing their excerpts. Late Thursday night the German Parliament met to discuss a controversial online copyright bill that would allow publishers to charge search engines for publishing excerpts from their article. No vote was made after the 40 minute debate, however this meeting has led to some serious shockwaves throughout the internet. This potential copyright bill was originally proposed by Federation of German Newspaper Publishers (BDZV). It states that search engines are pirating their content and republishing snippets of their article without consent and without sharing revenue to publishers.