This week, Google Portugal announced that it is ready to negotiate with the publishers of publications in the Portuguese press after the national transfer of the European copyright directive. “All proposals to Portuguese publishers will be based on objective and consistent criteria consistent with the law and existing copyright principles, including the frequency of display of the news “website” and the revenue generated from advertising coming from pages that also show excerpts from the news”, said Bernardo Correia, director of Google in Portugal, explaining that the technology company wants to avoid fines. “In particular, there is one provision that obliges us to prepare for negotiations: the new Portuguese law provides for criminal sanctions for the use of content that goes beyond “very short passages” without sufficient permission from the editors of print publications, placing our team at risk of criminal prosecution.” Thus, when the criminal sanctions go into effect on January 1, 2024, Google will be forced to limit the display of longer pieces of content unless it reaches an agreement with the relevant publishers. However, not all search news will be removed. “The news links and headlines will remain, and of course we will be happy to reopen discussions with press release editors at any time and restore longer news excerpts once we reach an agreement with them,” adds Bernardo Correia. So far, Google has signed “agreements covering more than 1,500 publications in 15 countries.”