Performance must be worthwhile.
This is not just a saying, it is a principle that threatened and is threatening to go to shame in the digital age - because intellectual performance, intellectual property, the work of authors, publishers and exploiters are called into question by the business model of the digital corporations.
The new copyright law, which was enforced in the EU against massive opposition from the GAFA and its helpers, puts a stop to this.
It includes an “ancillary copyright” of the press publishers, with whose content a company like Google, even if it claims the opposite, generates revenue.
Lo and behold: if there is a law that formulates legal claims, Google moves.
The group announced that it had concluded ancillary copyright contracts with press publishers.
In the first round are Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, Handelsblatt, Tagesspiegel, Ströer (T-Online), Golem and Netzwelt.
Further discussions "with large and small publishers" are "at an advanced stage".
Google even wants to talk to the collecting society Corint Media, which has sent the group an invoice for 420 million euros, which Google believes has no basis whatsoever.
Will it stay that way?
It should be a question of price.
Those involved remain silent about this, one thing is assured: the claims of the authors - authors and editors - to a share of at least one third of the publisher's income from ancillary copyright, as stipulated by the Copyright Act in Section 87k, are preserved.
Google says: “We cannot provide any information on the details of the contracts.” We'll come back to that.