News content
Facebook: License agreement with French publishers
Facebook reached an agreement with French publishers. Photo: Fabian Sommer / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
News content from newspaper publishers on Facebook – this is not only a sensitive topic in Germany. Unlike in this country, there is now an agreement with the platform in France.
Facebook and the French publishers association Apig have reached an agreement on the subject of copyright. The group should receive licenses and pay them accordingly, it said in messages from Facebook and Apig.
The agreement makes it possible to continue spreading news content on Facebook. Neither side gave any information about the financial details. Apig President Pierre Louette, however, spoke of considerable income, especially for the small publishers.
In its announcement, Facebook pointed to the free access to millions of people that it offered publishers. They could also generate additional income through the platform and bring people to their websites. The agreement also laid the foundation for the launch of “Facebook News” in France next year.
In Germany there is no such agreement at association level with Facebook. However, the US company has had agreements with numerous publishers for its “Facebook News” section since May. This is an area on the platform in which news content from publishers and media brands from Germany is presented in a separate area. The media companies are paid to link content to “Facebook News” that was previously not shown on the platform. But they don’t have to be specially produced for Facebook. How much money Facebook is spending on the project in Germany is not publicly known.
A sensitive issue in Germany
In Germany, the subject of ancillary copyright law is very topical for press publishers. This year, the copyright was amended and adapted to the fact that the Internet has become increasingly important for copyrighted content. The background to this is a corresponding EU directive that has been implemented in the countries.
The large complex of copyright law also includes a new ancillary copyright for press publishers and journalists in Germany. The whole thing is to ensure that authors and media houses are financially taken into account when external Internet platforms incorporate their press content.
In the past, publishers had repeatedly complained that external platforms benefited economically from the content, but the publishers themselves did not, or not sufficiently. For example, the collecting society Corint Media is currently in contact with Google and has made a claim against the US company in the three-digit million range for 2022.
The US company Google had announced in a reaction from the dpa: “We adhere to the law and orientate ourselves on facts, not on unfounded demands. Corint ignores the fact that Google creates significant added value for publishers and does not generate any significant income from news content. ” Google, on the other hand, says it is in talks with German publishers.