As a struggling self-taught web developer, I try to create websites that people enjoy and may find useful. In today’s world of billionaires owning the monopoly of websites, Facebook, Google, Twitter etc, it is a really difficult playing field and for someone like myself, it is becoming more and more impossible to earn a living doing what I know best. So I try to build many websites in all sorts of niches to support my family. With zero advertising budget and websites becoming more hidden by the big monopolies, not being able to afford to pay the likes of Facebook or Google €5 for a visitor, it has been a tough ride recently. Now with new EU laws protecting the mainstream media and monopolies, disallowing more than three words from anyone else’s content appearing on other websites, I have had no option but to pull down Spain’s News.
Spain’s News was a free service I built that auto translated Spanish news into English for thousands of expats living in Spain. I wanted to create a source of information to help people who struggle with the Spanish language to understand what is happening in Spain. News that would never appear in English news media was available for English speaking people, giving many a better understanding of Spain’s culture, politics, sport and economy. It was helping bridge a gap between Spanish and British residents. British people living in Spain were able to appreciate Spanish society and the place they decided to live and retire.
Recently, since an EU copyright ruling, there have been numerous complaints from journalists, photographers and news agencies. I have been threatened to pay those who originally wrote the news articles or took a photo that was produced on the source article. Although every news article on Spain’s News had a link back to the source and credited the original author, that was not good enough. The internet is becoming a world of greed, if you have no budget, you will struggle to earn a livelihood from the internet, especially in the news niche. You are no longer allowed to share news articles on websites without the risk of a fine. The EU ruling protects the big monopolies, it is only the small business and struggling web developer who has been hit hard and personally I think it is disgusting. Now if journalists and news agencies were to turn a blind eye, which I thought they might just do, it would have been OK. However, it seems that Spain’s news agencies, photographers and journalists simply want paying more than once. They search the internet for anything they have written and if it appears on a site, even in the translated form, they threaten using the EU law.
So with all of this that has happened, I have sadly decided to pull down Spain’s News to avoid any fines. It was a service appreciated by many and was becoming a popular source of news for British expats living in Spain. It was helping many understand the country where they have decided to live. It was helping Spain in many ways. I am a family man, living in Spain, with two young sons and a wife, struggling to pay the ever increasing rent, electric, water, autonomo and many other increasing bills. I have never taken anything out of Spain but it has taken a lot from me. There is no support, no help, although I have paid a small fortune in social security and TAX, I am entitled to nothing back.
What you can do right now to help my situation is take a look at my other websites listed below. You may find some useful or even enjoyable. I have tried my best for you all but it is the EU government, greed driven monopolies and journalists who have brought down what was a really good website. Please take a look at my websites and if you share them on social media, it would be an amazing help.
Thank you.
Simon.
My Websites
SimonWard.Net My personal blog that also has some tools and guides to help people understand how to build websites, create pages with HTML and an image editor that you can use to create flyers, posters or have fun editing photos.
BritishTVChannels.com A TV community site that has around 150 live UK TV channels based around a community of British TV fans.
OnlineVideoCall.com A website I built that allows you to make free video calls anywhere in the world via your browser. It works on any laptop, tablet or mobile phone.
ClassicFreeMovies.com If you enjoy really old classic movies, I put together a collection of copyright free movies you can enjoy from the 1900’s to the 1980’s. You can enjoy watching a large selection of movies for free without registration.
NoveltyBanknotes.com A collection of blank Euros, Pounds and US Dollars that you can use to create your own personalised banknotes for a small download fee.
AddFreeChat.com If you have a website or blog, you can add a free chat room to it so your visitors can enjoy chatting in groups. Simple copy and paste a bit of code to your website or blog and a full text chat room will become available for your site visitors.
VIPWebHosts.com I built this website for a friend of mine and I help run the servers. If you are looking for really good website hosting at a really low price, take a look and get a month free!
Most readers would have probably left by now without visiting any of my websites but for the small minority who do, thank you so much for taking a look. If you got this far and appreciate what I tried to achieve with Spain’s News, I am quite a bit out of pocket. If you are loaded with cash and feel like making a small donation, my PayPal is https://paypal.me/si0077 that would be amazingly appreciated. It is tough times right now and I am gutted to pull down this website as it was growing really well. I had some great feedback from many people and appreciate everyone who enjoyed the website.
Thank you for reading and I am sorry to have done this. My hands are tied, I cannot fight the big monopolies and as a family man, I have my kids to think of more than anything in the world. Thank you for your time. Simon.
Ps if you need any website work done, contact me here 😉