This screencap [1] is from an article from one of the most important newspaper; El Mundo. The article is about how news aggregators arehurting the newspaper industry and that it was high time that the authorities did something. Next to the article there is a widget to share that very same article on Facebook/Twitter/Linked and Meneame[2]. Meneame [3] is the main Spanish news aggreagator, a Digg clone. With this new law the future of all news aggregators in Spain is uncertain.<p>This is the statement from the creator of Meneame [2], he is considering either closing the site or moving abroad.<p>The law doesn't only affect linking to newspapers, it also applies to linking to blogs or other sources. You are supposed to pay the tax even when linking to blogs that are not affiliated with the program and that will never receive any money from it.<p>Under a strict interepretation of this law, HN is illegal in Spain.<p>[1] <a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BtPH52DCMAA3Ppk.png" rel="nofollow">https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BtPH52DCMAA3Ppk.png</a><p>[2] The article and the widget are still there: <a href="http://www.elmundo.es/opinion/2014/02/14/52fe8160ca4741d2018b4584.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.elmundo.es/opinion/2014/02/14/52fe8160ca4741d2018...</a><p>[3] <a href="http://www.meneame.net/" rel="nofollow">http://www.meneame.net/</a><p>[4] (Google Translated from Spanish) <a href="https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgallir.wordpress.com%2F2014%2F07%2F22%2Fun-apunte-personal-rapido-sobre-el-canon-aede%2F&edit-text=&act=url" rel="nofollow">https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=y&prev...</a>
Imagine this bill multiplied a thousand times (in various forms) and applied to every industry imaginable, and you start to get an idea of what legislation looks like in southern Europe.
This will most likely be damaging to the newspapers in the long run. The result will be a reduced proliferation of links to the newspapers, which will cause a lower visibility.
The most effective solution for this issue would be to create some form of online coalition of companies against these type of over-reaching copyright taxes (Google, Bing, Wordpress, Twitter, Facebook, etc.)<p>If the newspapers that lobbied for this tax are delisted and unable to be linked to, their traffic will plummet and they'll be unable monetize their online presences via ad revenue.