Google must talk to French publishers about paying for their content, court says

[PARIS] Google must open talks with publishers in France about paying to use their content, an appeals court confirmed on Thursday, paving the way for an industry-wide deal in the country.

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 European Union 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 Zeith, and in Brazil with Folha de S.Paulo, Band and Infobae.

The French court's ruling comes hours after Google, the world's biggest search engine, said it was set to reach with a deal to pay French publishers for their news in the latest move to placate media groups and head off regulators siding with publishers seeking a level playing field.

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

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"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." The ruling confirms a decision in April by France's competition authority, which ordered Google to negotiate with publishers and news agencies "the remuneration due to them for any re-use of protected content". Under the same decision, the antitrust regulator ordered Google to open talks within three months of being asked to do so by publishers.

REUTERS