Danish media companies are engaging in a new negotiating tactic with Google and Facebook about paying copyrights for news shown on the platforms. Several newspapers, broadcasters and news sites join forces in their negotiations, the British newspaper Financial Times writes.
Nearly thirty Danish media companies will gather on Friday for their first meeting as a collective bargaining organization. It is possible that the joining of forces can also be a source of inspiration for media companies in other countries in Europe and beyond, it sounds like.
The partnership means, among other things, that the tech companies will not be able to play a usual game of “divide and conquer,” said Anders Krab-Johansen, the chief executive at newspaper group Berlingske Media and one of the driving forces behind the initiative. FT.
“What you see in most countries is that Google or Facebook make certain deals with one or a few dominant media companies, they set the standard, and the market has to follow. We would prefer to have a collective bargaining position, which gives us a certain weight in the talks,” said Krab-Johansen.
The Danish initiative is based on the European Union Copyright Directive, which gives publishers the right to demand revenue for the digital use of their material. According to the newspaper, it is the first time that a broad collective has been formed in Europe to submit claims to tech companies. The only major Danish media group not part of the collective is magazine publisher Egmont, which shows how difficult it is to get everyone on the same page.
Google and Facebook spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually to pay for news worldwide. Financing is closed one-on-one with publishers and is linked to specific news products. This allows the technology companies to avoid systematic copyright charges for the use of fragments or snippets of content on their platforms.
France was the first EU country to apply the Copyright Directive. There, the news industry concluded a framework agreement with Google last year but arranged the payment terms separately. Because of this approach, there was a lot of secrecy about these agreements, and there was division in the media sector. The French magazines now want to negotiate separately with Google and Facebook as a collective.
Google says it will respect the way Danish publishers want to negotiate and wants to talk to the collective to reach an agreement. Facebook, meanwhile, has tried to limit its liability by removing hyperlinks to news posted by users.
