欧盟草拟激进版权改革方案向谷歌等施压
European news publishers will be given the right to levy fees on internet platforms such as Google if search engines show snippets of their stories, under radical copyright reforms being finalised by the European Commission.
根据欧盟委员会(European Commission)正在拟定的激进版权改革，欧洲新闻出版商将被授予向谷歌(Google)等互联网平台收费的权利——只要搜索引擎显示了他们的报道片段。
The proposals, to be published in September, are aimed at diluting the power of big online operators, whose market share in areas such as search leads to unbalanced commercial negotiations between search engines and content creators, according to officials.
欧盟官员们表示，定于9月发表的这些提议，目的是为了稀释大型在线运营商的实力，它们在搜索等领域的市场份额导致了搜索引擎与内容创作者之间在商业谈判中处于不对等的地位。
The move will heap further pressure on the strained relationship between Silicon Valley and Brussels, which are embroiled in increasingly fractious arguments over issues covering competition, tax and privacy. This week, the US Treasury department attacked commission moves to levy billions of euros from Apple for alleged underpayment of taxes in Europe.
此举将给硅谷和布鲁塞尔之间的紧张关系带来更大压力；近来双方在竞争、税收和隐私等问题上越来越谈不拢。本周美国财政部抨击了欧盟委员会以苹果(Apple)涉嫌在欧洲少缴税为由、可能向该公司征收数十亿欧元税款之事。
Under the draft copyright plan, news publishers would receive “exclusive rights” to make their content online available to the public in a move that would force services such as Google News to agree terms with news organisations for showing extracts of articles.
根据版权计划草案，新闻出版者将拥有把它们的在线内容提供给公众的“独家权利”，此举将迫使谷歌新闻(Google News)等在线服务与新闻机构就显示文章片段商定条款。
Citing dwindling revenues at news organisations, the commission warns that failure to act would be “prejudicial for . . . media pluralism”, according to one internal document.
欧盟委员会的一份内部文件提到新闻机构的营收不断减少，警告称，不采取行动将“有损……媒体多元化”。
Critics of the idea argue that similar efforts to charge Google for aggregating news stories have failed in both Germany and Spain. Google responded to a mandatory levy in Spain by shutting down Google News in the country.
批评者指出，德国和西班牙曾经发起的向谷歌收取聚合新闻报道费用的类似努力都失败了。谷歌对西班牙强制性收费的回应是在该国关闭谷歌新闻。
In Germany, many publishers opted to waive the charge in order still to appear on the search engine’s news results after suffering big drops in traffic.
在德国，很多出版社在遭受流量大跌后选择放弃收费，以便仍能在该搜索引擎的新闻搜索结果上出现。
Julia Reda, a German MEP and copyright reform activist, said: “They recognise that German and Spanish rights did not work well, but structurally they are trying to do the same thing.”
德国欧洲议会议员、版权改革活动家朱莉娅•里达(Julia Reda)表示：“他们认识到德国和西班牙的权利制度没有很好发挥作用，但从结构上说，他们正试图做同样的事情。”
But she said the size of Google would make it hard for publishers to reach a deal even with the exclusive right. “It is insane to believe that [they] would win this battle,” she said. Google declined to comment.
但她表示，谷歌的规模意味着，出版社即使具备独家权利，也很难达成协议。“疯子才会相信他们能打赢这场战斗，”她说。谷歌拒绝置评。
Under the proposals, news publishers would not be obliged to levy a fee for an aggregator to show a segment of content, and could offer it free. Officials have made clear that simply linking to publicly available content is not covered by the EU’s copyright rules — a fact that will not change under the proposals.
根据版权改革提议，新闻出版商将不会被强制向聚合商收取显示内容片段的费用，而是可以免费提供。官员们明确表示，仅仅是链接到可公开获得的内容是不受欧盟版权规则约束的——改革提议不会改变这个事实。
Christian Wigand, a spokesperson for Brussels, said: “Let's be clear; granting such rights to news publishers would not affect the way users share hyperlinks on the internet. It would recognise their role as investors in content.”
布鲁塞尔方面的发言人克里斯蒂安•威根德(Christian Wigand)表示：“让我们说清楚：赋予新闻出版商这类权利，并不影响用户分享互联网上的超链接。出版商作为内容投资者的角色将得到承认。”
Elsewhere in an impact assessment of the proposed reforms, Google was held up as an example to be followed. Under the new rules, user-generated video sites would have to introduce tech-nology to identify copyright-protected work, similar to that which Google-owned YouTube already employs.
与此同时，在评估拟议改革的影响的一份报告中，谷歌被列为一个效仿的榜样。按照新版规则，用户生成内容的视频网站将必须引入技术来识别版权保护的作品，类似于谷歌旗下YouTube已经采用的做法。
