Jawohl: Information wants to be free, reporters want to be paid, Part 32

What does the German newspaper business have that we don't?

An article in The New York Times Sunday contrasts the relative woes of the industry in the two countries, noting American newspaper circluation is down 27 percent over a decade, compared to 19 percent in Germany. Fewer than half of Americans read the newspaper, while more than 70 percent of Germans do. Newspaper revenues in Germany have held steady since 2004, while the same cannot be said of American papers.

According to a study by the German Newspaper Publishers’ Association, American newspapers have slashed newshole and personnel, while German papers have held steady. Also, the German papers have declined to give away all of their content on the Web.

The article notes an interesting move in Germany: "Publishers have lobbied the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel to draft legislation that would create a new kind of copyright for online content; German publishers say this could serve as a lever to extract revenue from search engines and news aggregators. And they have complained to the German antitrust authorities about the dominance of the biggest search engine, Google."

In fact, on Friday a German court enjoined an Internet service provider from giving Web access to a company calling itself The Pirate Bay, which apparently allowed users to swap purloined copies of movies.

Intellectual property law worldwide could be in for some changes.