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 EU copyright rules, which allows publishers to demand a fee from online platforms for showing news snippets.
This differs from last week’s pledge by Alphabet’s Google to pay $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 platform 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 Zeit, and in Brazilwith Fohla de S.Paulo, Band and Infobae.
The French court’s rule came just after Google 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.
“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.
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