Google has won a copyright battle in Europe after Germany approved a watered-down version of the copyright bill which would make search engines like Google provide excerpts of newspaper articles without paying any charge.
The new law will allow Google and other search engines to publish small bits of text from news stories in search results.
Google’s victory comes after persistent lobbying that included a campaign against proposed German copyright law.
The new ancillary copyright bill passed by the lower house of Germany now allows search engines to publish individual words or small snippets of text for free, although they have to pay for using longer content.
Google said in a statement that as a result of vote, ancillary copyright in its most damaging form has been stopped.
"However, the best outcome for Germany would be no new legislation because it threatens innovation, particularly for start-ups," the company said.
"It’s also not necessary because publishers and Internet companies can innovate together, just as Google has done in many other countries."
The Federation of German Newspaper Publishers said in a statement about the bill, "It will make it possible for publishers to decide for themselves and under what conditions search engines and aggregators can use their content for commercial purposes."
