New Swedish copyright law is being prepared - will press Facebook

- We want newspapers to have the opportunity to spread their content online.

But we also want the global tech giants to pay for the use of journalism and we want more fair and reasonable competition conditions, says Tidningsutgivarna's acting CEO Thomas Mattsson.

According to him, the trade association Tidningsutgivarna is positive that the copyright directive adopted by the EU in April 2019 is soon expected to result in a new Swedish law.

But Mattson believes that the Swedish bill will be delayed.

Swedish bill will be presented shortly

Patrik Sundberg is a legal expert at the Ministry of Justice and primarily responsible for the implementation of Article 15 of the EU Copyright Directive to Swedish law, which is to regulate the relationship between media companies and IT companies.

- The purpose of Article 15 is to strengthen the position of online newspaper publishers by giving them exclusive rights to their publications, he says.

In short, Article 15 means that publishers and media companies can demand compensation when journalism is disseminated on digital platforms.

As the government has not yet presented its proposal on how the directive will be implemented in Sweden, Sundberg cannot go into any details.

But he emphasizes that a proposal will hopefully be presented soon.

Exactly what effects it will have can not be answered at present.

You have to see when we have the legislation in place in Sweden.

Right now we are writing on proposals for legislation, he says.

According to the EU Copyright Directive, the new legislation in the member states will come into force no later than 7 June this year.

Ygeman surprised

Anders Ygeman (S), Minister of Energy and Digitization, had not expected Facebook to go as far as the company has now done in Australia.

He prefers that the IT giants and the news media themselves make and sign agreements, but what has happened has affected his view of the need for legislation.

- It has strengthened my perception that we must regulate the tech giants more sharply and that we get a functioning EU legislation, he says to Swedish Radio Studio one.