French Court: Google Must Negotiate About Paying News Sources

A French appeals court on Thursday, October 8, confirmed the country’s antitrust authority’s order to US tech firm Google to pay French publishing companies and news agencies for their content, reported Reuters. 

The ruling may reverberate outside France, as it compels Google to sit down with publishers and news agencies to find a way to remunerate them under the “neighbouring right” enshrined in revamped EU copyright rules, which allows publishers to demand a fee from online platforms for showing news snippets.

It differs from last week’s pledge by Alphabet’s Google to pay US$1 billion to publishers globally for their news over the next three years, because the French arrangement would involve finding a sustainable methodology to remunerate publishers and news agencies for news.

Google’s vehicle to remunerate news publishers, dubbed Google News Showcase, is set to launch in Germany, where it has signed up German newspapers including Der Spiegel, Stern, Die Zeit, and in Brazil with Folha de S.Paulo, Band and Infobae.

“Our priority remains to reach an agreement with the French publishers and press agencies,” Google said in a statement.

“We appealed to get legal clarity on some parts of the order, and we will now review the decision of the Paris court of appeal.”