Digital news consumption and copyright intervention: evidence from Spain before and after the 2015 “link tax”

We analyze patterns of digital news consumption before and after a “link tax” was introduced in Spain. This new legislation imposed a copyright fee for showing snippets of content created by newspapers and resulted in the shutdown of Google News Spain. The Spanish copyright law is a precedent to the...

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Main Authors: Majo-Vazquez, S, Cardenal, AS, Gonzalez-Bailon, S
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: Oxford University Press 2017
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author Majo-Vazquez, S
Cardenal, AS
Gonzalez-Bailon, S
author_facet Majo-Vazquez, S
Cardenal, AS
Gonzalez-Bailon, S
author_sort Majo-Vazquez, S
collection OXFORD
description We analyze patterns of digital news consumption before and after a “link tax” was introduced in Spain. This new legislation imposed a copyright fee for showing snippets of content created by newspapers and resulted in the shutdown of Google News Spain. The Spanish copyright law is a precedent to the Copyright Directive currently submitted to the European Parliament, which is planning to impose a similar “link tax.” We offer empirical evidence that can help evaluate the impact of that sort of intervention. We analyze data tracking news consumption behavior to assess changes in audience reach and audience fragmentation. We show that the law has no discernible impact on reach, but we identify an increase in the fragmentation of news consumption.
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spelling oxford-uuid:f702a890-d60a-4338-abef-a477f593d8ad2022-03-27T12:39:31ZDigital news consumption and copyright intervention: evidence from Spain before and after the 2015 “link tax”Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:f702a890-d60a-4338-abef-a477f593d8adEnglishSymplectic ElementsOxford University Press2017Majo-Vazquez, SCardenal, ASGonzalez-Bailon, SWe analyze patterns of digital news consumption before and after a “link tax” was introduced in Spain. This new legislation imposed a copyright fee for showing snippets of content created by newspapers and resulted in the shutdown of Google News Spain. The Spanish copyright law is a precedent to the Copyright Directive currently submitted to the European Parliament, which is planning to impose a similar “link tax.” We offer empirical evidence that can help evaluate the impact of that sort of intervention. We analyze data tracking news consumption behavior to assess changes in audience reach and audience fragmentation. We show that the law has no discernible impact on reach, but we identify an increase in the fragmentation of news consumption.
spellingShingle Majo-Vazquez, S
Cardenal, AS
Gonzalez-Bailon, S
Digital news consumption and copyright intervention: evidence from Spain before and after the 2015 “link tax”
title Digital news consumption and copyright intervention: evidence from Spain before and after the 2015 “link tax”
title_full Digital news consumption and copyright intervention: evidence from Spain before and after the 2015 “link tax”
title_fullStr Digital news consumption and copyright intervention: evidence from Spain before and after the 2015 “link tax”
title_full_unstemmed Digital news consumption and copyright intervention: evidence from Spain before and after the 2015 “link tax”
title_short Digital news consumption and copyright intervention: evidence from Spain before and after the 2015 “link tax”
title_sort digital news consumption and copyright intervention evidence from spain before and after the 2015 link tax
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AT cardenalas digitalnewsconsumptionandcopyrightinterventionevidencefromspainbeforeandafterthe2015linktax
AT gonzalezbailons digitalnewsconsumptionandcopyrightinterventionevidencefromspainbeforeandafterthe2015linktax