Google steps up opposition

Germany was pressing ahead Thursday with plans to charge Google for quoting headlines and sentences from news websites, shrugging off online opposition from the US search giant. The bill, which would allow newspapers to demand fees from Google and other search sites, was scheduled to have a first reading in the Bundestag around midnight - as deputies slogged through an end-of-the-year backlog of parliamentary business, dpa reported. In an unusual alliance, the youth wings of both of Germany's main political parties issued a joint statement Thursday calling the bill a 'brake on innovation' and 'interference in the internet's architecture of freedom.' The centre-right coalition government has insisted the law is needed to protect Germany's media. German copyright law prevents unlicensed copying of complete news articles from a newspaper's website, but has allowed small parts, generally called snippets, to be quoted on another website.