Four months tops. The French Parliament broke records quickly in order to transpose into its law a part of the eu directive, amending the copyright law, adopted at the end of march in Strasbourg after long months of battle between “pro” and “anti”. France is now the first european country to have a right neighbor for the press, the subject of the article 15 of the european text, after the vote in second reading in the national Assembly of the proposal of law of senator David Assouline (PS) by 81 votes for and one vote against.
“right neighbor” is intended to create a compensation mechanism for the publishers of the press, whose articles are reproduced, even partially, on Google, Twitter, Facebook, and any other type of platform or aggregation site. Goal, restore the balance of power between the media and GAFA, whereas the latter capture the bulk of advertising investments on the Internet. According to a study by the firm EY-Parthenon commissioned by the Alliance of the press of general information and published in The World, the “loss of income” for French publishers is estimated between 250 and 320 million euros per year, “that is, between 9% and 12% of the advertising revenue of search engines, and social networks.”
” SEE ALSO – Rights of neighbors: “today the Gafa capture more than 90% of the value on the internet”
neighbouring Rights: “Today?today the Gafa capture more than 90% of the value on the internet” – to Look on Figaro Live
The time of the negotiations begins
now all that Remains is to negotiate with the GAFA. The party is not going to be easy. During the european negotiations, Google had left it to hover the threat of the closure pure and simple of Google News in Europe. During a few days, he had also changed his search engine. The press articles were ever indexed, but without their titles, photos and first lines. Only remained in the URL. The european directive indicates that the platforms are free to distribute without financial compensation “single words or very short extracts”, what the elected French have translated everything which does not exempt the user to read the article to see the main information.
publishers will need to agree on several points. To which collective management company will they entrust the collection and the redistribution of their copyright? How will be calculated the compensation paid by the platforms? How this windfall will be distributed among the publishers? The idea of a sharing pro rata of the audience of each media group was discarded so as not to encourage the “farm-to-clicks”. The French law states that “the determination of the amount of the remuneration takes into account items such as investment in human, material and financial made by the publishers and the news agencies and the contribution of the news publications, political news, and general.”
once the right neighbor, put in place, discussions will not be completed. The act provides in effect that journalists are also “an appropriate and fair” of the manna collected by their employers. Each media will have to conduct internal negotiations between management and elected staff. These discussions should be held within six months following the publication of the law in the official gazette.
