Google is now paying French publishers for news content
Google News app. (Photo: BigTunaOnline / Shutterstock.com)
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After a tough legal struggle, Google has now agreed to pay French media to display news snippets.
After the EU ancillary copyright law came into force, Google News boss Richard Gingras Nor said the company would pay publishers for the news extracts displayed on the search site. Google remained true to this credo even after France was the first country to transpose the EU standard into national law. Instead of paying, Google simply no longer displayed any text excerpts there. As a result, the press publishers concerned lodged a complaint with the French competition authority and obtained the right there. A challenge to the judgment by Google was also unsuccessful.
After exhausting the legal possibilities, Google has now given in. On the Corporate blog the company announces that it will pay French newspapers to display news extracts. This was agreed with the French industry association L’Alliance de la Presse d’information generale (APIG). How much money a publisher receives should depend on factors such as the daily publication volume and the number of readers. In accordance with the agreement with APIG, Google will negotiate individual license agreements with the publishers.
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Meanwhile, Google is threatening Australia with closing the search engine
In Australia, too, a planned law should ensure that providers like Google will have to pay media companies in the future when they distribute their content. The Internet giant, which currently answers more than 91 percent of all Internet search queries worldwide, wants to avoid paying there too. Threatened at a hearing in the Australian Senate Google’s Australia boss Mel Silva, the group will no longer offer the search engine in the country if the planned law comes into force without changes. According to Silva, the law was formulated too imprecisely and would mean incalculable financial risks for the group.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison responded to Silva’s statements at a press conference, stating: “Australia makes the rules for things that can be done in Australia. That is done in our parliament. It is done by our government. And that’s how things work here in Australia, and people who want to work with them, in Australia, are very welcome. ”But threats would not be accepted, said Morrison.
