Google, Facebook and Co .: EU demands remuneration for media companies

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In the coming months, there will be arguments in Brussels about how the big Internet companies can help maintain diversity of opinion in Europe.

If it is up to the members of the European Parliament who are involved in the regulation of big tech, new rules in the future should require Facebook, Google and other tech companies that they reward European media companies when they distribute their content.

The parliamentarians are currently discussing two large pieces of legislation with which the tech companies in Europe are to be put in their place: the law on digital services (DSA) - the future basic law for all internet companies in Europe - and the law on digital markets (DMA) which is explicitly written to break the market power of the tech giants.

Over the next few months, the European Parliament will table its amendments to the draft legislation by Industry Commissioner Thierry Breton and Commission Vice-President Margrethe Vestager.

Compensation for media companies could become part of the tech package.

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A blueprint for this is possibly Australia's most recent advance.

Platforms there are to pay for it in the future when they use media content.

Google has already threatened to leave the Australian market for this reason.

MEPs also want such tough rules.

"In the context of the debate on DSA and DMA and other digital policy initiatives by the EU Commission, we have to clarify as soon as possible which remuneration models could exist to involve Google and others more in the financing of journalism, art and culture," says Rasmus Andresen .

The Greens MP is shadow rapporteur in the industry committee for the DMA.

"Initiatives like the Australian one help us move this forward."

Avoid delicate negotiations

In fact, there are already corresponding rules at EU level: The EU only revised its copyright law two years ago.

The legislation was very controversial and Germany has only just implemented it into national law.

The reform should improve the bargaining position of media houses vis-à-vis large tech companies when it comes to remuneration for content.

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Andresen warns against relying on it.

"We shouldn't wait and then check in a few years whether the copyright reform has worked," says the Green politician.

“It is already becoming apparent that it doesn't work in areas like journalism.

I don't want to wait for the big digital corporations to destroy even more media diversity by then. "

The European Commission had explicitly left out the topic in its drafts for the two major tech laws.

The two initiatives should neither replace nor supplement existing laws such as the Copyright Directive, said the powerful EU authority.

Commission officials are likely to want to avoid delicate negotiations similar to those of the copyright reform.

Back then, the big tech companies had gone to great lengths to kick off a controversial debate about upload filters.

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"It would be risky if the DSA and DMA parliament reopened the discussion about ancillary copyright law," warns Moritz Körner.

The FDP MP negotiates the issue in the Interior Committee for the liberal parliamentary group.

"That would open Pandora's box, because then the whole discussion about upload filters would flare up again." He also argues that we should first wait and see how the copyright directive is implemented.

Open handling of the algorithms required

Other EU parliamentarians, who see dangers for diversity of opinion, also warn against committing to a solution now.

"It is vital for our democracies and our basic democratic order that diversity of opinion is preserved in the social networks and on the platforms and that serious voices have their say," says the influential CDU MP Andreas Schwab.

“That assumes that there is sufficient quality journalism there.

We are working on the prerequisites for this. "

The spokesman for the conservative EPP group in the Internal Market Committee can, however, already warm up to one aspect of Australian regulation.

There, the platforms should notify the media companies two weeks in advance if they are planning changes to their algorithms.

In Europe too, platforms would have to be more open with algorithms, says Schwab.

“The claim that the algorithms must remain secret and are intellectual property cannot be upheld.

Algorithms are business tools to enforce one's own interests and must therefore not enjoy the same protection as other intellectual property. "

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