No, the EU is not going to make hyperlinks illegal

Ah copyright

The scoundrel's charter

A lovely example of disgusting copyright abuse here regarding the Diary of Anne Frank:

http://time.com/4113855/anne-frank-diary-co-author/

Don't count your chickens just yet...

"So I’m happy to report that hyperlinking without permission is not about to be made illegal, and many reports that are likely to surface in the following weeks are exaggerated."

It will depend on how vague the wording is. All it will take is for some numpty Judge who doesn't understand the implications to rule otherwise and then it will be in case law until a higher court rules differently or the EU Commission changes it.

If companies choose to put stuff on the web without understanding how it works then they've got nobody to blame but themselves.

Hyperlink != content

This is mild gibberish

A hyperlink to an article is not copyright infringement.

Reproducing a chunk of an article on your own site, with a hyperlink to the full original is a different matter, and seems to be what we're talking about here.

Possibilities

Google News places quoted text from the articles it links to on its own web page. Are they brief enough to constitute "fair use"? Particularly if people may become informed of news events without clicking through to the actual article. So there are two sides to that issue, even if, on balance, most people find Google News very useful.

Also, it is commonly considered an abuse to place an image from another site on one's web page even through use of a link instead of by copying it. Many sites already use technical means to prevent this.

So there is room to use copyright law legitimately to restrict some practices without banning the normal use of hyperlinks to direct people to other web pages.

What?

"The worst-case scenario would be for the wrong approach adopted in Spain and Germany to become the blueprint applied to the rest of the EU under the pretence of harmonisation"

How would this be the worst-case scenario? Google would be hard pressed to stop using sources from all EU publishers, and may actually have to pay the charge proposed.

We could debate whether or not there should be a charge, but this is the fundamental difference between unilateral and multilateral action, and the author's conclusion is badly flawed.

Digital IP is an oxymoron

Once IP is digitized, you better find some other way to monetize your IP.

Musicians now monetize the hell out of selling concert tickets.

AAA games get most of their monitization via online subscriptions, not selling boxes.

The very act of digitizing IP is to communicate it in full to anyone with an Internet connection.

Let's face it, the Pirate Bay only linked to copyrighted stuff and they got hauled over the coals...it's not like they were active in ripping/storing the material. Nowt new here.

Just a small question re. paying for news..

I am wondering if this is more about Google's monopoly power than anything else.

Personally, I do not see it as unreasonable that if one entity produces news, another entity (which, after all, did not spend any resources creating that news) only gets to use, say, a headline without being asked to share in the costs or share in the profit they derive from the news they basically stole.

In shorter form, doing a Huffington Post should be made to benefit those who create the content in the first place, who then have the choice of sharing. That is really what copyright is about, no?

Instead, we have a single source supplier of interest (Google), who, for lack of credible competition, can force things that are contrary to law and intent. That does not show a flaw in the approach to copyright, but in managing a monopoly that has become so powerful it can rewrite the rules without being part of the electorate.

Or have I missed something here?