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The Federal Minister of Justice recently picked up on an idea that already brought a portion of ridicule to the Chancellor years ago: The use of the Internet is something “completely new”, said Social Democrat Christine Lambrecht of the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”.
That was reminiscent of the “new territory” that Angela Merkel once wanted to venture into, when business, science, culture and considerable parts of the rest of society had already settled down on the Internet.
Politics is sometimes slower - and with it legislation.
This is dangerous.
Because the conditions of our life and business are indeed changing fundamentally.
However, the driver here is not “the network” in the sense of an innocent and nameless data highway.
They are its protagonists - in the West, that is Google, Amazon and Facebook with its offshoots.
Microsoft has recently become more involved.
You and a few others have long since conquered the "new territory" and, without question, have created some good things.
At the same time, however, like the old colonialists, they are not only about to enforce their rules, but also to take everything with them that they consider abandoned.
Or explain without further ado.
How can decent journalism be financed in the digital world?
Thomas Düffert, board member of the Madsack media group
Source: Oliver Reetz
Whatever it takes is copied online - and the established platform giants prefer not to look very closely at what they are spreading.
Search engine operators live well with it when they present with an innocent air that they themselves have no content, but only show what is there on the Internet.
It is not easy for authors of intellectual property to defend themselves against this mixture of cleverness and audacity, but publishers and journalists as well as musicians, film people and writers have to make a living from the commercial exploitation of their creative work.
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However, Google and Co. do not pay the authors a cent, but distribute the works free of charge.
Newspaper content, for example, is often searched for, found on Google and read as an excerpt.
No one is interested in how they got there, who possibly laboriously procured the information and made it legible.
The consequence that the Federal Ministry of Justice is now drawing from the situation is downright hair-raising: According to the draft text for the reform of copyright law, it plans to use text excerpts of 1000 characters (about the net length of Goethe's “Erlkönig” or three times “Our Father” ) should be able to be distributed quite legally on the Internet in the future.
Because you can't change it anyway and film trailers, music excerpts or reading samples from books are deliberately put online by the providers.
Translated into the analog world, this could mean: Because it is customary to get small samples in perfumeries, there must now be a legal obligation to give ten milliliters of the desired fragrance to everyone who enters the shop.
Also several times a day.
Can that be true?
This idea of a new regulation of copyright does not come out of the blue.
Recognizing that interventions by individual nations in the big players in the industry only lead to slightly raised eyebrows, the EU decided in 2019 to re-regulate property rights in the digital single market for all member states with a directive.
Unlike France, however, Germany is not simply implementing the directive, but wants to find its own way by the deadline in the middle of next year.
According to all that can be seen, it leads to enormous damage.
The essentials must not be free
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Last but not least, the Ministry of Justice overlooks how information is perceived and consumed today.
1000 characters - that can be a solid news story on the net that contains everything essential.
Regardless of whether it is an accident report on the online portal of the “Göttinger Tageblatt”, a political message from the “Frankfurter Allgemeine” or exclusive information from the Berlin office of the “Rheinische Post” - journalists need more in the first 1000 characters than ever say the essentials.
Anyone who confuses the first 1000 characters of a text with an advertising trailer for a movie knows little about the current media world.
And incidentally disregards the manual skills of journalists who have just learned to formulate things in a nutshell.
There is one thing above all in those first 1000 characters: hard work.
In addition: With many interesting texts it will not take long before the individual excerpts are reunited to form longer texts on the Internet, because several resourceful users quickly copy 1000 characters each as a "quote" and put them together again.
There will be a reason why the EU directive does not speak of this clipping robber baron at all.
Why does Germany want to know better here?
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One may find this debate about excerpts from journalistic texts small.
But behind this detail there is a big question: What is a free, independent press worth to us?
A press that is balancing the digital transformation and on the one hand conquers the "new territory", but on the other hand must not give up the "old country".
"Altland" can be understood almost literally: rural areas that are still not supplied with high-speed internet continue to rely on the press to come into the house in printed form.
And some older citizens don't really want to make friends with all these tablets and smartphones.
These sections of the population also have a right to information and to participate in public discussion.
Participation that then only the printed newspaper enables.
The delivery infrastructure, which is indispensable for this and which reliably ensures that the latest news reaches readers' mailboxes early in the morning, can no longer be financed across the board by the newspaper publishers from subscription revenues.
White spots threaten - areas with no internet and no newspapers.
One cannot imagine the consequences for our democracy.
That is why the temporary promotion of the delivery infrastructure, which is currently intensely discussed by politicians, is a promotion of the transformation of journalism.
It enables the publishers to continue to guarantee the increasingly deficit "Altland" supply and to take care of the "new territory" all the more with the free investment budget.
Transformation of journalism takes time.
We should take it.
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After all, the decisive question for the future is: How can decent journalism be financed in the digital world?
This question is not only of interest to publishers - it is crucial for our society and democracy of tomorrow.
Democracy is inconceivable without digital journalism.
The population also sees it this way: After all, there is no lack of public interest in digital journalistic work - on the contrary: regional news portals from Aachen to Frankfurt / Oder in particular have seldom been as well attended as in these Corona times, which are also challenging for our democracy.
Readers want to know more, secure comprehensive information and, above all, always want to know exactly how things are going on site.
Thousands of local reporters who earn their living with it are on the way to meet this need for information.
That is worth something and it costs.
Journalism financed by the market economy is more important than ever today in the digital world of shitstorm networks and conspiracy blogs.
Publishing houses are currently making immense efforts and investing in technology and personnel, creating and securing jobs for highly qualified specialists.
The state must protect the fruits of this work - the journalistic work - from pirated copies with copyright.
And don't legalize the pirated copy.
Thomas Düffert is Chairman of the Group Management of the Madsack Media Group and Vice President of the Federal Association of Digital Publishers and Newspaper Publishers (BDZV).