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French publisgers signing agreement with Google

Google and French publishers agree on Extended News Previews

Google announced it has signed agreements with more than 150 French publishers based on the EU’s new copyright directive. The company says it is negotiating with publishers in other EU countries as they implement the directive in their national legislation. The French competition authority has accepted Google’s commitments to pay for using the publishers content online.

France was in the forefront implementing the European directive in national legislation and the authority has earlier been criticizing Google and has fined the company for being slow in the negotiations.

The law on publishers’ and news agencies’ neighbouring rights requires platforms like Google to have agreements with the producers of online content before posting protected content beyond very short extracts.

Read Also:  Google signing first European copyright agreement

France introduced the neighbouring rights already in October 2019 and has been seen as a test market for how big tech companies and publishers would agree based on the new legislation.

“Over the past two years, we have made every effort to establish a framework for negotiations with press publishers under the supervision of the Autorité de la Concurrence, in order to determine remuneration on the basis of transparent, objective and non-discriminatory criteria. On this basis, we have already concluded more than 150 agreements with securities in France. These agreements cover the content of press publications beyond links and short excerpts, which we call Extended News Previews”, Sébastien Missoffe, CEO and VP, Google France Google, said in a statement.

Google said the company has also reached framework agreements with apig (Alliance de la Presse d’Information Générale) and SEPM (Syndicat des Editeurs de la Presse Magazine), which represent two thirds of the audience of French online press publications, and each of their members has received a remuneration offer.

Read Also:  EU Commission says members too slow on copyright

The contracts include agreements with news agency AFP and national dailies lemonde.fr, lefigaro.fr, la-croix.com. Google says the French competition authority has accepted the company’s commitments to negotiate with the publishers for the coming years.

“An independent trustee will be appointed to monitor the proper implementation of the commitments. These commitments illustrate our desire to move forward and pay publishers and news agencies for their neighbouring rights”, Missoffe said.

“Our teams are more committed than ever to concluding agreements with all publishers and news agencies eligible for the neighbouring right publishers in France, and thus strengthen our support for journalism in France, in the continuity of our investments in this area”.

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