After a long battle with Google, a group of French press publishers has reached an agreement worth 62.7 million euros for the technology giant to compensate for the use of its news in its search engine. The existence of the agreement was known several weeks ago, but the amount of the compensation has now been revealed by Reuters. The agreement lasts three years and the compensation is just over 18 million euros a year to be able to use the contents of 121 national and local publications, and just over 8 million a year to ensure that the media will not file lawsuits for rights of author against Google.
The agreement has angered many French media that are not part of the agreement: they have criticized that the compensation is unfair and that Google is opaque when it comes to determining how much revenue it gets from the use of its content. Among them is France Press (AFP), the main French news agency, which maintains its legal battle against Google, and other representatives of the press, who want to continue with actions against the US technology company.
The agreement will be scrutinized in many countries where the press is in a war footing against Google to get fair compensation for the use of its content. One of them is Spain, where the company closed its Google News service in December 2014 to avoid paying a fee established by the Intellectual Property Law. Google is pushing for the adoption of the European directive on the establishment of compensatory agreements between technology companies and the media to place their content on its search engine. The Silicon Valley giant is negotiating with some media an understanding like the one reached in France, but in exchange for the withdrawal of the canon established by law.
In Australia, its legislators have drawn up a draft law that would force Google and Facebook to pay publishers and media for the use of their content. Google’s response has been to threaten to shut down its search engine in the country. In the US, Congress is seeking to pass a law that allows the media to bargain collectively against big tech companies, and a report by their legislators highlights that these companies have damaged the press because they “impose unilateral terms on publishers .Compensation in the neighboring country ranges from just over a million euros for “Le Monde” to just over 10,000 euros for a place like “La Voz de la Haute Marne.” “These opaque agreements do not ensure fair treatment of all media, since the calculation of the formula is not public,” criticized the organization of independent publishers Spiil on the compensations in France. Google took advantage of our division to further its interests
