Hundreds of journalists called Wednesday
for European officials to take action against Google over its refusal to pay
media companies for displaying their content in defiance of a strict new EU
copyright law.
France was the first country to ratify the law, which was passed
this year and comes into force on Thursday to ensure publishers are compensated
when their work is displayed online.
But Google said last month that articles, pictures and videos
would be shown in search results only if media firms consent to let the tech
giant use it for free.
If they refuse, only a headline and a bare link to the content
will appear, Google said, almost certainly resulting in a loss of visibility
and potential ad revenue for the publisher.
Around 800 journalists as well as photographers, filmmakers and
media CEOs signed an open letter published in newspapers across Europe urging
governments to ensure that Google and other tech firms comply with the new EU
rule.
"The law risks being stripped of all meaning before it even
comes into force," the letter said, calling Google's move "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 presidents of the European Alliance of News Agencies and the
European Newspaper Publishers' Association also signed the letter.
- 'Catastrophe' -
Google has countered that it benefits news publishers by sending
more than eight billion visits to their websites each month in Europe alone.
"We don't pay for links to be included in search
results" because "it would undermine the trust of users,"
Richard Gingras, Google's vice president in charge of news, said in Paris last
month.
But news publishers, including AFP, say such links to their
websites are unable to help them cope with plummeting revenues as readers
migrate online from traditional media outlets.
French President Emmanuel Macron has said Google will have to
comply with the law, and the European Commission said it stands ready to assist
member states, which must translate into domestic legislation by June 2021.
The new rules create so-called neighbouring rights to ensure a
form of copyright protection -- and compensation -- for media firms when their
content is used on websites such as search engines or social media platforms.
"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," said the open letter.
"We call on the public decision-makers to fight back."
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