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Entorno digital
The Google tax dies before birth
30 oct. 2014After its passage through the Senate two weeks ago, the Congress of Deputies has approved the Intellectual Property Act, a very controversial measure for, among other reasons, the inclusion of the so-called Google Tax.
The adoption of the law occurs just a few days after an ECJ ruling stating that "a work made available on a website by being inserted into another website through a link using the technique of “transclusion”, as used in the main proceedings, cannot be called “communication to the public” within the meaning of Article 3, paragraph 1 of Directive 2001/29 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and rights related to copyright in the information society, "to the extent that the work in question is not transferred to a new public or disseminated by means of a specific technique different from the original communication" .
Therefore content that is previously available on the Internet in a free and open manner can be embedded in a web without having to ask permission from the owner of the copyright of the content. And of course, what applies to the whole (in the case commented upon by this ruling this is a video on Youtube), applies to the part, ie for links.
The ECJ ruling means that the Spanish Congress has just passed a measure such as the Google tax which will be almost unenforceable in court. At OCU, we hope that logic prevails and that ultimately consumers are not forced to waste time nor see their right to information violated by a measure whose premature death has just been certified by European justice.