I have sympathy for news publishers but I worry a lot about the principle of asserting that
linking to something is an act that the link target has proprietary rights to over. At some level, it is almost a free speech issue. If I can't refer to what you are saying, without owing you something, you have power over not just my speech, but a power to limit how your work is subjected to criticism and debate. It's effectively an extension of copyright law to expand copyright holder's rights.
Obviously all this is hyperbolic based the actual text of the law. The law doesn't directly apply any sort of link tax, and it is shamelessly targeted only at Google and Facebook (to the point that they wrote Facebook in there by name, which is kind of stupid if you ask me). But if you drill into the reasoning it hits at the foundational level on this basic logic, and it's pretty concerning if we assume then that this will be significantly extrapolated and expanded - as has been the history with all other aspects of copyright in the past.
Honestly I would rather that governments come clean and just admit that the problem they are trying to solve is actually a "social good" outcome, and therefore directly tax the platforms and then redistribute the revenue to a fund created by government for news journalism themselves. Trying to artificially construct that through introduction of significant new precedents in copyright law engenders huge risks of unintended consequences and potential future extrapolation and abuse of this principle.
Obviously all this is hyperbolic based the actual text of the law. The law doesn't directly apply any sort of link tax, and it is shamelessly targeted only at Google and Facebook (to the point that they wrote Facebook in there by name, which is kind of stupid if you ask me). But if you drill into the reasoning it hits at the foundational level on this basic logic, and it's pretty concerning if we assume then that this will be significantly extrapolated and expanded - as has been the history with all other aspects of copyright in the past.
Honestly I would rather that governments come clean and just admit that the problem they are trying to solve is actually a "social good" outcome, and therefore directly tax the platforms and then redistribute the revenue to a fund created by government for news journalism themselves. Trying to artificially construct that through introduction of significant new precedents in copyright law engenders huge risks of unintended consequences and potential future extrapolation and abuse of this principle.