Alphabet Inc’s Google has agreed to pay US$76 million over three years to a group of 121 French news publishers to end a more than year-long copyright spat, documents seen by Reuters show.
The agreement between Google and the Alliance de la presse d’information generale (APIG), a lobby group representing most major French publishers, was announced previously, but financial terms had not been disclosed.
The move infuriated many other French outlets, which deemed it unfair and opaque. Publishers in other countries will scrutinize the French agreement, the highest-profile in the world under Google’s new program to provide compensation for news snippets used in search results.
Fees range from as large as US$1.3 million for France’s reference daily Le Monde to US$13,741 for local publisher La Voix de la Haute Marne, documents show. They did not specify how the amounts were calculated.
Leading national dailies Le Monde, Le Figaro and Liberation and their groups negotiated about 3 million euros (US$3.6 million) each per year on top of the fee in the agreement, notably by agreeing in November to sell subscriptions through Google, one source close to the matter said.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) and other French news providers that do not belong to the group are not part of the agreement and are pressing forward with various actions against Google.
The accord follows France’s implementation of the first copyright rule enacted under a recent EU law that creates “neighboring rights,” requiring large tech platforms to open talks with publishers seeking remuneration for use of news content.
In Australia, lawmakers have drafted legalization that would require Google and Facebook Inc to pay publishers and broadcasters for content. Google has threatened to shut down its search engine in Australia if the country adopts that approach, which the company called “unworkable.”
The French documents seen by Reuters include a framework agreement in which Google will pay US$22 million annually for three years to a group of 121 national and local French news publications after signing individual licensing agreements with each.
The second document is a settlement agreement under which Google agrees to pay US$10 million to the same group in exchange for the publishers’ commitment not to sue over copyright claims for three years. Publishers would commit to an upcoming new product called Google News Showcase that would allow publishers to curate content and provide limited access to paywalled stories.
Google declined to comment on terms of the deal.
Reuters news agency, a division of Thomson Reuters Corp, last month struck a deal with Google to be the first global news provider to Google News Showcase.
Reuters’ French rival AFP has maintained its complaint with the French antitrust watchdog against Google, an internal source said. Last month, AFP chief executive Fabrice Fries welcomed the deal between Google and APIG, but called on the tech company to extend such copyright deals to news agencies.
Pressure is mounting on Google globally to pay for news content, as the industry’s advertising and revenues have plummeted with the rise of digital platforms.
In Spain and Germany, publishers have tried but failed to charge Google for displaying excerpts, or snippets. German publishers lost a legal battle in 2019 for 1 billion euros worth of copyright fees since 2013.
The text of the EU “neighboring rights” rule was aimed at creating a new sustainable stream of revenues for news publishers.
In the US, the news industry is backing legislation that would allow it to negotiate collectively with the big platforms without violating antitrust law. In Congress, lawmakers recently issued a report saying dominant tech firms have harmed the news industry because they “can impose unilateral terms on publishers, such as take-it-or-leave-it revenue sharing agreements.”
Andrew MacLeod, chief executive of Canada’s Postmedia, said publishers there are watching talks in other parts of the world.
“We seek an outcome to grow and architect our future rather than relying on a handout,” he said.
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