Now you Google it, now you don't.

The French love passing laws. They've passed ones banning smartphones from schools, taxing tech giants, and giving employees the right to disconnect outside of working hours.

The latest one is a copyright law that will require 'information society service providers' (read: Google) to pay publishers for showing snippets of news articles in search results (you know, those four lines you read instead of the full article and then use to show how knowledgeable you are about the new law France has just passed).

France has passed the law off the back of Article 15 (draft Article 11) of the European Union Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. Article 15 requires EU Member States to grant publishers copyright over online use of their press publications by information society service providers (read: Google), on the basis that use of snippets has gained economic relevance.