谷歌新聞因版權新規退出西班牙

LONDON — Google News is saying goodbye to Spain.

倫敦——谷歌新聞(Google News)即將告別西班牙。

The website, which compiles headlines and summaries of news articles from various sources, will go dark in Spain on Dec. 16. Google plans to shut the site there in protest of a new law that would force the company and other news aggregators to pay Spanish publishers for the use of their content.

谷歌新聞將各種來源的新聞標題和摘要聚合起來，顯示在網頁上，這個網站將於12月16日在西班牙關閉。谷歌計劃在西班牙關閉該網站，是爲了抗議一項新法律。這項法律要求谷歌及其他新聞聚合網站，爲它們所使用的內容向西班牙出版商支付費用。

The rules, which come into force in January, do not specify how much Google and others like Yahoo News would have to pay per article. But they carry a potential one-time $750,000 fine if companies do not comply with the law.

上述規定將於明年1月生效，但法律條文並未具體說明谷歌及雅虎新聞(Yahoo News)等網站需要爲每篇文章支付多少費用。但如果這些企業沒有遵守規定，則可能需要一次性繳納75萬美元（約合460萬元人民幣）的罰款。

The legislation follows similar rules in other countries, including France and Germany, that allow publishers to charge when parts of their articles are included in Google’s news aggregation. In those countries, the company has tended to come to terms with the publishers, rather than withdraw from the field. But the Spanish rule will not allow local publishers to forgo such payments.

在西班牙之前，法國和德國等其他國家已經出臺了類似的法規，即當谷歌的新聞聚合服務收錄了出版商文章的部分內容時，出版商有權收取費用。在這些國家，谷歌常常傾向於跟出版商達成妥協，而不是從相關國家撤出。但西班牙的法規並不允許出版商放棄收費。

And in the case of Spain, it is not clear what parties, if any, will benefit from the new rules.

具體到西班牙的情況，尚不清楚是否會有任何一方能從新規的實施中受益。

While the law is aimed at providing much-needed revenue to Spanish publishers, which are struggling to generate income from their online offerings, the loss of Google News and the traffic that it sends to local newspapers may end up hurting publishers that often rely on the company’s service to direct people to their websites. In Germany, some publishers have opted to waive their right to demand fees, rather than lose the traffic Google sends their way.

這項規定旨在向西班牙出版商提供急需的營收，它們目前難以從在線服務中取得收入。儘管如此，失去谷歌新聞，以及它爲當地報紙帶去的流量，可能最終還是會損害出版商的利益，因爲後者常常依靠谷歌的服務，來把人們引導到自己的網站。在德國，一些出版商寧可放棄索取費用的權利，也不願意失去谷歌帶來的流量。

But Google’s dominance of Europe’s online world — its search business holds a market share of about 85 percent, bigger than in the United States — has European officials trying to rein it in.

但谷歌在歐洲互聯網行業的主導地位已經促使歐洲官員設法對其加以限制。其搜索業務佔有約85%的市場份額，比在美國的市場份額還大。

The European antitrust authorities in Brussels asked on Thursday for more information from online mapping and travel companies as part of the European Commission’s long-running investigation into Google’s business practices. And the search engine has been struggling to cope with a European privacy ruling this year that allows people to ask that some links about themselves be removed from global search results.

週四，布魯塞爾的歐洲反壟斷官員要求在線地圖和旅行企業提供更多信息，這是歐盟委員會(European Commission)對谷歌商業行爲的長期調查的一部分。谷歌也一直在艱難應對今年歐洲做出的一項隱私保護方面的裁決，即人們有權要求在全球搜索結果中，刪除與自己有關的某些鏈接。

Google, which reported revenue of $16.5 billion in the third quarter, said on Thursday that the Spanish law, which has been nicknamed the Google Tax, would make it too costly for the company to continue operating its local news site, although Spanish publishers’ content would still be available in its regular search results.

谷歌三季度錄得1650億美元營收。該公司週四表示，西班牙這項被戲稱爲“谷歌稅”的法律，使該公司在當地繼續運營該新聞網站的成本變得十分高昂。不過，西班牙出版商的內容仍將出現在常規的搜索結果中。

‘‘It’s with real sadness that we’ll remove Spanish publishers from Google News, and close Google News in Spain,’’ Richard Gingras, the head of Google News, said in a blog post, adding that the search engine’s news product directed millions of readers to publishers’ websites. ‘‘As Google News itself makes no money (we do not show any advertising on the site), this new approach is simply not sustainable.’’

“我們將在谷歌新聞中去除西班牙出版商的內容，並在西班牙關閉谷歌新聞服務，我們對此真的很傷心，”谷歌新聞負責人理查德·金格拉斯(Richard Gingras)在一篇博客中寫道。他接着表示，該搜索引擎的新聞產品會爲出版商的網站帶去數百萬讀者。“因爲谷歌新聞本身不賺錢（在這個網站上我們沒有展示任何廣告），所以這種新方式根本無法持續下去。”

In response, Spain’s Ministry of Culture, which helped draft the new rules, said in a statement that Google’s choosing to close its local news aggregator was a ‘‘business decision’’ separate from the country’s legal process, and that news and other information would still be freely available on the Internet.

作爲迴應，參與起草新規定的西班牙文化部在一份聲明中表示，谷歌選擇關閉在當地的新聞聚合服務屬於“商業決策”，與該國的法律程序無關，並且人們依然可以免費在互聯網上獲取新聞和其他信息。

As part of Google’s decision to shut Google News in Spain, which is the first time the company has taken down its aggregator service for legal reasons, it will also remove all Spanish publishers, including El País, from its global news aggregating products.

在西班牙關閉谷歌新聞服務的同時，谷歌還決定從其全球新聞聚合產品中去除所有西班牙出版商的內容，包括《國家報》(El País)。這是谷歌首次因法律原因關閉聚合服務。

In total, Google News in Spain receives about 3.5 million visitors a month, making it the 226th most-visited site in the country, according to SimilarWeb, a digital measurement company. That compares with more than 250 million monthly visitors in the United States, where Google News is the 30th most-visited website.

在線統計公司SimilarWeb的數據顯示，西班牙的谷歌新聞每月會有約350萬訪客，是該國訪問量排名226位的網站。而在美國，谷歌新聞的月訪客數超過2.5億，訪問量排在第30位。

Although the Spanish law is aimed solely at online news aggregators, changes in how people use technology may soon make the rules redundant.

儘管西班牙那項法律針對的只是在線新聞聚合服務，但隨着人們使用技術的方式發生改變，相關規定可能很快就會顯得多此一舉。

That is because individuals, many of whom rely on smartphones to surf the web, are increasingly finding news content through online searches and social media posts, not aggregation sites.

這是因爲，個人用戶正越來越多地通過在線搜索和社交媒體上的帖子，而非聚合網站來獲取新聞內容。他們中的許多人依靠智能手機上網。

The Spanish newspaper El Mundo, for example, receives just 1.3 percent of its monthly traffic from Google News, compared with 34 percent from search engine queries, according to SimilarWeb. In contrast, the news agency Reuters still relies on news aggregators for about 44 percent of its Internet traffic in the United States.

比如，SimilarWeb的數據顯示，西班牙《世界報》(El Mundo)每月通過谷歌新聞獲得的流量僅佔1.3%，而通過搜索獲得的流量比例卻高達34%。與之形成對比的是，在美國，路透社(Reuters)依然有大約44%的網絡流量依賴於新聞聚合器。

For some publishers, however, Google News still plays an important role in how people consume digital content.

不過對部分出版商而言，谷歌新聞對於人們消費數字內容的方式，仍然起着重要的作用。

After Germany passed rules that permitted publishers to charge aggregating sites when their articles appeared online, Google removed many German organizations from its news product, which led to a drastic fall in online traffic to some newspapers’ sites.

在德國通過法律允許出版商在其文章出現在網絡上時，向聚合網站收費之後，谷歌從其新聞產品中刪除了許多德國新聞機構的內容，導致部分報紙的網站流量驟減。

Axel Springer, which has talked openly about Google’s dominance, experienced a 40 percent decline in traffic coming from Google’s search results and an 80 percent drop in traffic from Google News, according to Mathias Döpfner, Axel Springer’s chief executive.

阿克塞爾·斯普林格(Axel Springer)曾公開討論過谷歌的主導地位。該公司的首席執行官瑪蒂亞斯·德普夫納(Mathias Döpfner)表示，谷歌搜索結果帶來的流量減少了40%，谷歌新聞帶來的流量減少了80%。

Mr. Döpfner said that Axel Springer would have ‘‘shot ourselves out of the market’’ if the company had continued demanding that news aggregating sites pay a licensing fee for its content.

德普夫納稱，如果斯普林格繼續要求新聞聚合網站爲其內容支付授權費，公司已經“把自己趕出市場了”。

Google has faced similar challenges with French and Belgian publishers, but eventually reached an agreement with local newspapers, which includes the creation of $74 million fund to help French publishers with their digital operations.

在法國和比利時的出版商面前，谷歌也遭遇了類似的挑戰，但它最終與當地的報紙達成了一項協議，內容包括設立一項7400萬美元的基金，以便爲法國出版商的數字業務提供幫助。