bad sign of the times....read the entire article, but here is a bit of it...
"This new legislation requires every Spanish publication to charge services like Google News for showing even the smallest snippet from their publications, whether they want to or not," Gingras wrote in a blog. "As Google News itself makes no money (we do not show any advertising on the site) this new approach is simply not sustainable."
Google News has long irked newspaper publishers and other content providers, who contend the service tramples on copyrights by creating a digital kiosk of headlines and story snippets gathered from other websites. Most criticism has likened Google to a freeloader, but there have been attempts to force the company to change its ways through the courts.
Google maintains it obeys all copyright laws while sending more people to websites highlighted in its News services. The company also allows publishers to prevent material from being displayed in Google News, an option few websites choose because the service is an important traffic source to sell ads.
Alejandro Tourino, a Madrid-based lawyer who specializes in media issues and has worked for The Associated Press on several legal cases, said Spanish news publishers may "have shot themselves out of the market. Time will tell."
After Germany revised its copyright laws last year to allow — but not force — Google News to make royalty payments, Google required publishers there to give their consent for summarizing content. Most did.
Google last year agreed to help French news organizations increase their online advertising revenue and fund digital publishing innovations to settle a dispute over whether the company should pay for news content in its search results.
Google also had to respond to a ruling this year from Europe's highest court, which decided that Europeans have a right to scrub unflattering or outdated information from Google's search engine that pops up in a search of their names. That case started in Spain.
