Google has signed an agreement with the French daily press to pay it under "neighboring rights", a major step forward in a case that has poisoned relations between the French press and the American giant for more than two years.

The "rights related to copyright", instituted in 2019 by a European directive, allow newspapers, magazines or press agencies to be remunerated when their content is reused on the internet by major platforms.

With regard to the American firm, neighboring rights must remunerate the press extracts that appear in the search engine results pages.

Their implementation proved to be a tough battle, as the principle was opposed by the giants of the net, and Google in particular.

The agreement announced Thursday between Google and the Alliance for General Information Press (Apig), which brings together nearly 300 national, regional and local daily press titles, thus replaces a previous agreement announced in January 2021.

This had been rendered inoperative by a decision of the Competition Authority in July 2021, condemning Google to a fine of 500 million euros for not having negotiated "in good faith" with press publishers.

The new agreement announced Thursday is in any case "a historic step in the implementation" of neighboring rights, underlined Google and Apig in a joint press release.

It "sets the principles" for press compensation "on the basis of transparent and non-discriminatory criteria", they explained.

Neither Google nor Apig wished to give an indication of the estimated amount of rights to be distributed.

But some daily newspapers, which have already signed individual agreements with Google, nevertheless gave indications of the amounts they had managed to negotiate.

Le Monde, for example, has reached an agreement which represents around 1 million euros per year, its boss, Louis Dreyfus, said on BFM Business on February 1.

Jean-Michel Baylet, the director of the La Dépêche du Midi group, for his part estimated "around 2 million euros" the annual amount that his group should receive in its agreements with Google and with Facebook, which is also concerned. by neighboring rights (the group signed a framework agreement with Apig last October).

Other agreements expected

According to Google, the agreement with Apig represents "25% of online press titles, 40% of online audience and 40% of jobs for journalists with press cards".

Google hopes to make further progress soon, by signing agreements of the same type with the Syndicate of magazine press publishers (SEPM) and individual players, in particular audiovisual media information sites.

“We hope in the coming weeks to have signed agreements which would allow us to remunerate two-thirds of the French press, in terms of audience and number of journalists”, explained in mid-February Arnaud Monnier, director of partnerships at Google. France, during a symposium at the National Assembly.

AFP, for its part, announced last November that it had signed a 5-year agreement with Google on related rights, accompanied by two commercial contracts also signed for 5 years, for training and the production of visual formats. verticals for smartphones.

Google also indicates that it has launched less advanced negotiations with other professional federations, such as the National Federation of the Specialized Press (FNPS) or the Federation of Press Agencies (FFAP).

As for the rest of the procedure still in progress before the Competition Authority, it may be able to find a solution in the coming months.

Google has provided the Autorité with a list of commitments made to the press, which, if accepted, could end the procedure.

After this conflicting phase, the American giant claims to want to relaunch numerous collaboration projects with the French press, whether it concerns monetization of advertising content, subscription policy, or editorial assistance tools.

The neighboring rights file is closely followed abroad, with France occupying a leading position in the global battle for the remuneration of press content by the major internet platforms.

With AFP

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