Author Archives: Christine Antlanger-Winter

Österreichs neues Urheberrechtsgesetz

Der österreichische Gesetzgeber hat soeben Änderungen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes beschlossen, mit denen die europäische Urheberrechtsrichtlinie von 2019 umgesetzt wird. Zu diesen Änderungen gehört die Einbindung von Artikel 15 der Richtlinie, der ein Leistungsschutzrecht für Presseverlage einführt. Google beabsichtigt, mit Presseverleger:innen in Österreich in Verhandlungen zu treten, um ihre Inhalte im Rahmen dieses neuen Rechts zu lizenzieren.

Das novellierte österreichische Urheberrechtsgesetz enthält zwei wichtige Leitprinzipien. Einerseits dürfen Personen und Plattformen weiterhin auf sehr kurze Auszüge von Inhalten der Presseverlage verlinken und diese nutzen. Gleichzeitig schafft das Gesetz neue Rechte für Presseverlage, wenn größere Auszüge aus ihren Werken online verwendet werden. Obwohl das Gesetz den Umfang der geschützten Inhalte nicht definiert, werden wir österreichischen Presseverlagen Angebote für eine erweiterte Vorschau von Inhalten, also Extended News Previews (solche Inhalte, die möglicherweise durch das neue Gesetz geschützt werden) machen.

Unser Ansatz folgt dem Vorbild von Gesprächen, die wir bereits mit Hunderten von Nachrichtenverlagen in Ländern wie Deutschland, Ungarn, Frankreich, Dänemark und den Niederlanden geführt haben, in denen das Gesetz bereits in Kraft ist, und folgt auf unsere zuvor angekündigten Vereinbarungen in Deutschland.

Wie bisher haben Verlage auch weiterhin die volle Kontrolle darüber, ob ihre Inhalte in der Google-Suche angezeigt werden oder nicht und in welcher Form diese Inhalte in einer Vorschau verwendet werden können. Sie können diese Einstellungen jederzeit ändern und wir werden die Vorschauen weiterhin gemäß den von ihnen vorgenommenen Einstellungen anzeigen.

Wir hoffen eine Einigung zu erzielen, die es uns ermöglicht, den Zugang zu Information und Journalismus in Österreich weiterhin zu unterstützen, ohne dabei die Grundprinzipien des offenen Internets zu verletzen.

Parallel zu diesen Gesprächen werden wir weiterhin in Journalismus investieren. Da die Österreicher:innen Nachrichten zunehmend online abrufen, nutzen Journalist:innen und Verlage Technologien, um ihre Leser:innen zu erreichen. Google hilft den Menschen, diese Informationen zu finden, indem wir Links zu Nachrichten- und anderen Websites anbieten und Tools, Werbetechnologien und Finanzmittel bereitstellen, mit denen Verlage online Geld verdienen können. Anfang des Jahres haben wir zudem unser Lizenzprogramm für Nachrichten, Google News Showcase, in Österreich gestartet.

Wir freuen uns auf die Zusammenarbeit mit Verlagen und Journalist:innen bei all diesen Initiativen in den kommenden Jahren.

Austria’s New Copyright Law

Editors note: To read this post in German, visit this link.

The Austrian legislator has just adopted significant changes to copyright law, implementing the European Copyright Directive from 2019. These changes include the incorporation of Article 15, which introduces a new ancillary copyright for press publishers. Google intends to enter into negotiations with press publishers in Austria to license their content under these new rights.

Austria’s new copyright law provides two important guiding principles. On the one hand, people and platforms can continue to link to, and use, very short extracts of press publishers’ content. At the same time, the law creates new rights for news publishers when extended previews of their work are used online. While the law does not define the scope of protected content, we will make offers for Extended News Previews (such content that may be protected by the new law) with press publishers in Austria.

This follows discussions we have already started with hundreds of news publishers across countries including Germany, Hungary, France, Denmark and the Netherlands, where the law is now in effect, and follows our previously announced agreements in Germany.

As always, publishers have full control over whether or not their content shows up in Search, and how much of that content can be used in a preview. They can change these settings at any time and we will continue to display previews in accordance with those settings provided by publishers.

We hope to reach agreements that enable us to continue to support access to information and journalism in Austria, without harming important principles of the open web.

Alongside these discussions we will continue to invest in our support for journalism. As people in Austria increasingly go online to get their news, journalists and publishers are turning to technology to reach their readers. Google helps people find that information by linking to news and other websites, and provides tools, advertising technology and funding to enable publishers to make money online. Earlier this year we also launched our licensing programme for news, Google News Showcase, in Austria as part of our ongoing support for journalism in Austria.

We look forward to working with publishers and journalists on all these efforts in the coming years.

Google News Showcase is launching in Austria

Google News Showcase, our new product and licensing program for news publishers, will begin rolling out in Austria today, building on our ongoing commitment to support journalism. Backed by our recent $1 billion global investment in news, Google News Showcase supports publishers by giving them a new way to curate their high-quality content on Google’s News and Discover platforms, connecting their readers with the news that matters to them. 


The Austrian publishers taking part at launch include, among others, Der Standard (derstandard.at), Wimmer Medien (nachrichten.at), Russmedia (vn.at, vol.at, vienna.at), Salzburger Nachrichten (sn.at, salzburg24.at) and Moser Holding (tt.com). These publishers represent a mix of local, regional and national news organizations around the country. 

This image shows the logos of some of our Austria News Showcase partners including DerStandard, OÖNachrichten, Salzburger Nachrichten, Salzburg24, Vorarlberger Nachrichten, Vorarlberg Online, Vienna.at, Tiroler Tageszeitung

Logos of some of our News Showcase partners in Austria including DerStandard, OÖNachrichten, Salzburger Nachrichten, Salzburg24, Vorarlberger Nachrichten, Vorarlberg Online, Vienna.at, Tiroler Tageszeitung

News Showcase is just the latest investment in our ongoing commitment to support journalism around the globe. Through both our services and direct funding of news organizations, Google is one of the world’s biggest financial supporters of news.


More than 800 news publications globally, more than half of which are in Europe, have now signed deals for News Showcase since last year. These span more than a dozen countries, including India, Germany, Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Australia, Czechia, Japan, the U.K. and Argentina,with discussions underway in a number of other countries. More than 90% of the publications signed up around the world represent local, regional or community news. 


“As the first German-language daily newspaper on the Internet, DER STANDARD was interested from the start in bringing its quality content to interested readers in all possible ways,” says Gerlinde Hinterleitner, online publisher of Der Standard, a national newspaper based in Vienna. “Google News Showcase is a logical continuation of this path. We look forward to being one of the first publishing houses in Austria to participate."


With News Showcase panels, news organizations can curate how their content appears. All panels direct readers to the full articles on the publishers’ websites, driving valuable traffic back to publishers and enabling them to deepen their relationships with readers. 

This image shows examples of how News Showcase panels will look with some of our partners in Austria including Der Standard, Salzburger Nachrichten, and Tiroler Tageszeitung/ Moser Holding

An example of how News Showcase panels will look with some of our partners in Austria.

“Google News Showcase is a great way for us to present our content to an even larger audience. Quality journalism from Upper Austria is our strength — and that is exactly what we want to promote through this new product,” says Gino Cuturi, Managing Director of OÖNachrichten, the leading regional newspaper in Upper Austria. “We aim to get even more readers excited about our digital products and to convince them of our local reporting in the long term.”


“Experience shows that there is still great potential for regional daily newspapers to attract occasional digital readers and then develop them into regular readers,” says Hermann Petz, the CEO of Tiroler Tageszeitung, the leading regional newspaper in Tyrol. “We see Google News Showcase as an opportunity to expand and monetize this ‘widest circle of readers.’”

This GIF shows examples of how News Showcase panel layouts will look from some of our publishing partners in Austria including Der Standard, Oberösterreichische Nachrichten/ Wimmer Medien, Russmedia, Salzburger Nachrichten, and Tiroler Tageszeitung/ Moser Holding

An example of News Showcase panel layouts from our publishing partners in Austria


News Showcase content from our publisher partners will automatically start to appear in Google News and on Discover starting today. As part of our licensing deals, we’re also paying news organizations for access to select paywalled content, giving people in Austria access to a wide range of news content. We work closely with news outlets to determine the right amount of content to share to help drive subscriptions.


“With the new storytelling formats, quality media can better disseminate journalistic content together with Google News Showcase,” says Georg Burtscher, Managing Director of Russmedia, the leading regional publishing house in Vorarlberg. “VN.at,Vol.at and Vienna.at are known for testing innovations in everyday life - that is also the case with this initiative.”


"The importance of independent and high-quality journalism for society has become very apparent in the Coronavirus-crisis – news gives people the information they need about their communities, people have faith in it,” says Maximilian Dasch, Managing Director of Salzburger Nachrichten. “Google News Showcase promotes digital news and provides more support for journalism."


For many years, Google has invested millions of euros in Austrian journalism through innovation funding. With funding and support from the Digital News Initiative Innovation Fund, DER STANDARD built an AI solution to help combat online hate speech in comments, resulting in a 50% decrease in the time taken by moderators. We also supported a project from news agency APA to create login and paywall infrastructure to drive digital subscriptions. Plus, we worked with vol.at who brought together behavioral science and tech innovation to create a loyalty program, leading to a tenfold increase in registrations. And in 2020, with the spread of COVID-19, the Google News Initiative offered support to 10 Austrian newsrooms through the Journalism Emergency Relief Fund, providing them financial assistance to get them through the pandemic. 


We’re committed to helping people access information online, supporting an open web and partnering with news organizations in Austria and around the world to reach new readers and develop sustainable business models online.