The digital group Google and the collecting society Corint Media have appealed to the arbitration board at the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA) in Munich in the dispute over the press ancillary copyright.

It is about the amount of money with which this claim arising from European copyright law is remunerated.

Corint Media demands 420 million euros per year for the publishers and broadcasters it represents, Google has offered 3.2 million euros.

Michael Hanfeld

responsible editor for feuilleton online and "media".

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“We have already concluded license agreements for over 400 local and national publications in Germany.

Since we would also like to conclude a corresponding contract with Corint, we have now called the arbitration board for a settlement proposal," said Google spokesman Ralf Bremer to the specialist portal "Meedia".

According to Bremer, intensive efforts were made to negotiate with Corint, but without success.

Google pays most publishers nothing

From the point of view of the collecting society, things are different.

On Thursday, Corint Media announced that an application had been made to the arbitration board for an agreement on unauthorized use of Google.

With a “neutral decision” by the arbitration board on the amount of remuneration, “the continued, illegal use of digital press products by Google should also come to an end in terms of copyright”.

Since the law came into force on June 7, 2021, Google has been using "the publisher's rights without consent" and paying "nothing to Corint Media and the majority of German press publishers".

To date, Google has “not informed the publishers nor Corint Media about how the press content is reproduced and made publicly available not only in the Google ecosystem,

but used throughout the Alphabet Group".

Above all, the arbitration board is asked to determine the "amount of reasonable remuneration" for the use of the press products.

It is appropriate "to have it confirmed that Google's payment offers in the lowest per thousand range are not only in violation of antitrust law, but also inappropriate in terms of copyright".

This gives the arbitration board a ball that is already in the hands of the Federal Cartel Office.

At the beginning of the year, the authority determined that Google is subject to ex ante regulation under the new Section 19a of the Act Against Restraints of Competition due to its outstanding market position.

In response to a complaint by Corint Media, the Cartel Office is investigating whether Google is abusing its market power, among other things through the individual contracts concluded with numerous publishers (including the FAZ publishing house) for certain offers such as the so-called "Google News Showcase".

Google argues that it compensates publishers for their ancillary copyrights through individual contracts and does not discriminate against anyone.

Corint Media says it is price dumping.

An indication of how things really are could be for the Bundeskartellamt that not only did Corint Media allow itself to be involved in the proceedings, but that the associations of newspaper and magazine publishers BDZV, MVFP and VDL also applied.

The associations represent publishers that have not previously benefited from a contract with Google, but also those that do.

This could indicate that all publishers have the impression that Google acts according to the motto "divide et impera" and gets away with it too cheaply, individual contracts or not.

The dispute is also of great importance for the authors, editors and authors.

According to the law, you are entitled to a third of the sums that the publishers agree with Google to compensate for the ancillary copyright.

If the sum is in the "per thousand" range of Google sales, as Corint Media puts it, there is next to nothing for tens of thousands of authors.

When it comes to amounts in the millions, things are different.

However, this is not the case for journalists who work for public broadcasters.

Although he produces masses of texts on the Internet, he believes that the ancillary copyright does not apply to him.

Unfortunately, the federal states responsible for media policy do not contradict this.

This leads to,

that public service broadcasting increases the billions in profits of Google, Facebook and Microsoft with its content, which is compulsorily financed by everyone paying broadcasting fees.

That could be an issue for the unions.