Memo to Google from Merkel and Macron: 'Respect EU's copyright rules!'

By Emmanuel Legrand

France and Germany have joined forces to send a message to Google and other tech companies: European Union's copyright laws have to be respected. The two countries issued a joint statement following a meeting between Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Emmanuel Macron calling for “full respect" of the rules outlined in the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market that was adopted by the EU before the summer.

  In a joint statement, the two countries said: "France and Germany reaffirm their determination to implement the new European Copyright Directive and to ensure full compliance with these rules." However, the statement was short on explaining how the two EU member states were planning to enforce the Directive.

  France is pushing for the creation of a European-wide regulator of digital platforms such as Google to sanction possible abuse of power, according to a Reuters report, which quotes a French official saying: “A big American company, Google namely, has announced it would not comply with an EU copyright directive. France and Germany share the view that... we have to put an end to this illegal behaviour." The official added: “Over the short-term, we would like the European Commission.... to look into whether legal action [against Google] is possible."

Get around the rules

  France was the first European country to transpose the Copyright Directive into its own legislation, taking effect at the end of October. The Directive creates a neighbouring right for news publishers to compensate them for the use of news snippets by search engines or social networks. “Certain companies like Google now want to get around the rules. We will not let them do this,” Macron said.

  The Franco-German initiative follows the decision by Google to refuse to pay French news publishers for using news snippets. Instead, Google said it would stop featuring news organisations that do not allow he search engine to use news items for free. Google was soon followed by Facebook in refusing to apply the neighbouring right.

  Facebook's director for news partnerships in Europe Jesper Doub wrote in a blogpost that French media groups would have to give consent for the social network to continue to feature enriched links to new stories and that publishers would not be compensated for the use of enriched links. 

Abuse of dominant position

  Publishers who do not agree to Facebook's terms will only be provided with a simple link of text. "Our talks with French editors to determine the best experience for users and how we could appropriately compensate our partners are ongoing and will continue," Doub wrote.

  The German Newspaper Publishers‘ Association (BDZV) and the French Alliance de la Presse d’Information Générale (APIG) have joined forces to publish a joint declaration calling for the full and timely implementation of the Copyright Directive’s neighbouring right for press publishers. 

 The APIG is calling for French government to enforce the law and take action against Google, while news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) is considering legal action. French news organisation are planning to ask the competition authorities to rule on Google's decision, which they equate to an abuse of dominant position.

Disinformation campaign

  Over 1,000 journalists, photographers, filmmakers and media executives signed an open letter published in media outlets across Europe urging governments to "fight back" against Google's decision.

  "Now that disinformation campaigns are infecting the internet and social networks, and independent journalism is under attack in several countries within the European Union, surrendering would be a catastrophe," reads the letter, which described Google's move as "a fresh insult to national and European sovereignty." 

  "The existing situation, in which Google enjoys most of the advertising revenue generated by the news that it rakes in without any payment, is untenable and has plunged the media into a crisis that is deepening each year," it said.

  The European Magazine Media Association (EMMA) and the European Newspaper Publishers’ Association (ENPA) have also expressed solidarity with newspaper and magazine publishers in France. Carlo Perrone, President of ENPA warned: “The publishers’ right is the first step to address platform’s dominance online. We will consider possible formal and legal steps to stop this misuse of Google’s market dominant position.”


> Facebook has launched a “News” tab that will offer stories from hundreds of news organisations, some of which will be paid fees for supplying content to the service, accordingto a report from The Washington Post. Facebook’s service is understood to include a mix of human curation by a small editorial team of journalists, who will select top stories, and computerised algorithms.

> In Brussels, current Digital Economy and Society Commissioner and future Commissioner for Youth and Innovation Mariya Gabriel, held the first stakeholder dialogue on the Copyright Directive, regrouping rights holders, tech companies and civil society groups. “We have to get over the divisions of the past,” she explained. 

Most of the discussion centered around Article 17 of the Directive, which requires platforms to have licenses for content and take down unlicensed content. Gabriel said Article 17 “opens a new chapter… [and] brings in a new framework that provides essential safeguards…it’s an approach that is a response to a very specific challenge.”

  The next round of stakeholder discussions will take place in Brussels on November 5, and will focus on copyright related to audiovisual, sports, images, prints, and news industries.