Neighboring rights: Google signed an agreement to remunerate the French press

Google headquarters in Mountain View, California.

AP - Marcio Jose Sanchez

Text by: RFI Follow

3 min

Google and the General Information Press Alliance (Apig), which represents French national and regional dailies, announced on Thursday, January 21 the signing of an agreement paving the way for the remuneration of the French press by the giant of the Net under the "neighboring right", after turbulent negotiations.

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Gone is the absolute domination of the American giant over the French press?

The new text " 

sets the framework within which Google will negotiate individual license agreements with members

 " of Apig, explain the signatories in a joint statement.

These will be licensing agreements that " 

will cover neighboring rights, and will also give newspapers access to News Showcase

 ", this program recently launched by Google in which it pays media for a selection of enriched content.

According to the

press

release, the remuneration of publishers will be calculated individually and " 

based on criteria such as, for example, the contribution to political and general information, the daily volume of publications or even the monthly Internet audience

 ".

For Pierre Louette, CEO of

Les Échos - Le Parisien

and president of Apig, this agreement “ 

marks the effective recognition of the neighboring rights of press publishers and the start of their remuneration by digital platforms for the use of their publications. online

 ”.

For his part, the boss of Google France Sébastien Missoffe sees it as confirmation of a " 

commitment 

" which opens them " 

new perspectives

 ".

► 

See also: Australia: Google calls on Internet users against a law on media remuneration

Google's unilateral decision, forced to " 

negotiate in good faith

 "

Apig and Google have come a long way: the French press accused the American digital giant at the end of 2019 of violating neighboring rights.

This right similar to copyright was created by a European directive.

It is supposed to lead to better sharing of digital revenues for the benefit of newspaper publishers and news agencies.

This new right barely entered into force in France, Google had decided unilaterally to index less well the newspapers which would refuse to let it continue to exploit their contents (titles, extracts of articles and thumbnails) for free in its search results.

The French press, having little choice, had complied but immediately seizing the Competition Authority, which in April 2020 had ordered Google to negotiate " 

in good faith

 " with publishers, a decision

then confirmed by the Court call from Paris

.

To read also: Gafa and media: "A very strong relationship of domination"

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