Google has no intention of entering into a process of negotiations with European newspaper publishers. On Wednesday, 25 September, the American giant announced in a blog post that it intended to alter the interface of its search engine in France before the end of October, because the national law transposing Directive 2019/790 on the subject of copyright comes into force at that time.
The European directive, which was adopted on 26 March, introduces new obligations for content-sharing platforms, such as YouTube and Facebook, and offers new protection for newspaper publishers who wish to monetise their online content (see EUROPE 12222/6). France was the first of the Member States to transpose this new related right into its national law.
The ultimatum from Google
However, Google has stated that it is not willing to negotiate. “When the French law comes into force, we will not show preview content in France for a European news publication unless the publisher has taken steps to tell us that's what they want. This applies to search results across Google services”, said Richard Gingras, vice-president of news at Google Inc., referring particularly to Google Search and Google News services. What this means is that either publishers agree to their content appearing in Google's services, or they object and, if they do, Google says that it will show a simple URL link with the title of the content and nothing more. Directive 2019/790, however, provides for a derogation for “very short” newspaper extracts, but does not specify what this means in terms of digital copyright.
Does this just apply to France?
According to European Commission figures, Google accounts for 93% of the online search market in Europe. It is worth recalling that the American giant has already taken the same stance in Spain and Germany, after both countries independently introduced a related right for newspaper publishers. At the time, Google chose to shut down Google News in Spain and forced German publishers to provide a free licence if they wanted to be referenced.
French Culture Minister Franck Riester described Google's statements as unacceptable. “I am calling for proper worldwide negotiations”, he said, and announced his intention of raising the issue with his European partners. It is difficult to imagine that Google will not apply the same treatment to all European newspaper publishers once the directive has been transposed into law across the whole of Europe. The European Commission has tried to provide reassurance by giving the message that the Directive is not in danger. A spokesperson for the Commission stressed that, on the contrary, “it makes EU copyright rules fit for today's digital world”. For the European Parliament, Helga Truepel said on Twitter: “I think Google is playing unpleasant power games. We need to see how the related right plays out in Europe”. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)