The European Ministers of Culture supported France on Thursday 21 November in the dispute between the French authorities and Google and Facebook concerning the introduction of a neighbouring right for newspaper publishers. Only Poland has expressed a contrary position, even predicting further problems in the implementation of the revised Copyright Directive.
France is the first country to have transposed this neighbouring right resulting from the recent legislative reform into its national law. But despite the entry into force of the French rules at the end of October, Google refuses to enter into negotiations with press publishers and only displays a simple URL link with the title of the content so as not to have to pay press publishers (see EUROPE 12335/12).
Exposing the situation on the ground to his European colleagues, French Culture Minister Franck Riester said Facebook has been more accommodating. The social network reportedly communicated its intention to comply with French law, but it asked to start a free temporary licence. This situation has led newspaper publishers to file a complaint with the French competition authority.
“I fear you may face the same difficulties”, concluded the Minister, inviting his counterparts to join forces. He received the support of the small number of Member States that took the floor. Austria suggested discussing this case at the Competitiveness Council, and Denmark proposed discussing it in specific workshops. Germany, Spain, Greece, Italy, the Czech Republic and Portugal were the other countries to take the floor.
Poland, on the other hand, has taken a completely different position. “We voted against it because we believe that these solutions pose a threat to fundamental rights and freedoms. [...] We cannot force restrictions on trade freedom in the EU”, the Polish minister said, pointing out that he was not surprised and that this kind of problem would certainly happen again elsewhere.
As a reminder, Poland voted against the text in the EU Council. It has even filed a complaint with the EU Court of Justice.
Meetings in the margins of the EU Council
The French Minister took the opportunity of his visit to Brussels to meet European press publishers (in the presence of his Greek and Croatian counterparts) and to have lunch with the Commissioner for Competition and future Vice-President for a Europe adapted to the digital age, Margrethe Vestager.
According to Franck Riester, competition law certainly does not make it possible to resolve the dispute with Google, but it may be necessary to consider amending it. “It should be done ex ante, rather than ex post.” He went on to say that, “The Commission’s sanctions against Google have not changed anything. Shouldn’t we proceed differently?”, he wondered, indicating that consideration could be given to more important tax tools or sanctions.
At the time this edition went to press, we were still waiting to hear what Margrethe Vestager had to say.
For their part, the press publishers ENPA (newspapers) and EMMA (magazines) told us that they had mentioned the different scenarios for receiving remuneration. They also presented their eight concrete ideas on how to rebalance the online digital market (beyond copyright).
These ideas suggest in particular the “introduction of asymmetric sectoral regulation, which would allow a specialised supervisory authority to impose appropriate obligations and requirements on platforms with specially consolidated market power, in order to stimulate competition and prevent abuses”.
See the proposals of press publishers: http://bit.ly/336sSev (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)