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GOOGLE

Google honours eccentric Catalan artist

The world's biggest search engine has paid tribute to contemporary art genius Antoni Tàpies by using one of his paintings on its homepage on the 90th anniversary of his birth.

Published: 13 December 2013 11:36 CET
Google honours eccentric Catalan artist
A major exhibition of Tàpies' artwork and sculpture is currently on display at Bilbao's Guggenheim Museum. Photo: Dominique Faget/AFP

Tàpies passed away in his Barcelona home in February 2012 after a life dedicated to painting, sculpture and lithography.

He is recognized as one of the key players in the Art Informel movement of post WWII Europe, a French style of abstract painting which was a reaction to cubism.

Tapies took an interest in art at the age of 17 when, after suffering a near-fatal heart attack which left him convalescent for two years, he was able to find the time to teach himself to draw and paint.

As his talent grew, the young Tàpies came to be known as the best Catalan artist in the vanguard period after WWII.

He looked to illustrate all that was sordid or unpleasant, from an abandoned shoe to an armpit.

Google has now decided to pay homage to Tàpies as they did to Spanish poet Federico García Lorca back in June.

A major exhibition of his artwork and sculpture is currently on display at Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum.

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BUSINESS

Google News to return to Spain after seven-year spat

Google announced Wednesday the reopening of its news service in Spain next year after the country amended a law that imposed fees on aggregators such as the US tech giant for using publishers’ content.

Published: 4 November 2021 10:15 CET
Google News to return to Spain after seven-year spat
Google argues its news site drives readers to Spanish newspaper and magazine websites and thus helps them generate advertising revenue.Photo: Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD / AFP

The service closed in Spain in December 2014 after legislation passed requiring web platforms such as Google and Facebook to pay publishers to reproduce content from other websites, including links to their articles that describe a story’s content.

But on Tuesday the Spanish government approved a European Union copyright law that allows third-party online news platforms to negotiate directly with content providers regarding fees.

This means Google no longer has to pay a fee to Spain’s entire media industry and can instead negotiate fees with individual publishers.

Writing in a company blog post on Wednesday, Google Spain country manager Fuencisla Clemares welcomed the government move and announced that as a result “Google News will soon be available once again in Spain”.

“The new copyright law allows Spanish media outlets — big and small — to make their own decisions about how their content can be discovered and how they want to make money with that content,” she added.

“Over the coming months, we will be working with publishers to reach agreements which cover their rights under the new law.”

News outlets struggling with dwindling print subscriptions have long seethed at the failure of Google particularly to pay them a cut of the millions it makes from ads displayed alongside news stories.

Google argues its news site drives readers to newspaper and magazine websites and thus helps them generate advertising revenue and find new subscribers.

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