So your basic argument is that the publishers are currently giving away their content for free and have been doing so for years and now, that someone has found

So your basic argument is that the publishers are currently giving away their content for free and have been doing so for years and now, that someone has found a viable business model based on aggregating and indexing that content, they suddenly want a share of those earnings while they still want to give away their content for free? It wouldn't be any problem at all for the publishers to hide their webpages behind a paywall and then charge for access. They could even try and negotiate a price with google. Now, wether that's a good strategy is a question in itself, but they don't do that. They rather want a "search engine tax" imposed by the state.