European media ‘deeply regrets’ EU plans to ditch search engine payouts

European media groups voiced concern Tuesday (14 March) that the European Union could ditch plans to force search engines like Google to pay them when their content is used.

A proposed EU directive on authors’ rights prepared by the European Commission included plans to create a so-called “neighbouring right” to such payouts from search engines.

But a European Parliament report on the proposal does not contain neighbouring rights, a move the board of the European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA) “deeply regrets”, Agence France-Presse (AFP), a member of the alliance, said in a statement echoed by various other European media groups.

The 32 news organisations – which also include Britain’s Press Association, Germany’s DPA and Spain’s EFE – called on the parliament to reinstate the plan.

AFP noted that search engines and other internet aggregators have been making a profit using content “that they have not created or financed”, which makes neighbouring rights crucial to protecting the content of news agencies and publishers.

“Search engines have become data banks, exploiting content they have not created and for which they have paid no remuneration,” the EANA said in a separate statement.

“Unauthorised internet use of media content is threatening citizens’ sustainable access to quality news content and a grave concern especially when discussing how ‘fake news’ and disinformation can distort elections and other democratic processes,” it added.

Julia Reda, a German MEP from the Pirate Party who is the Parliament’s rapporteur on the Commission’s copyright proposal, argues exactly the opposite, however.

Speaking to euractiv.de in January, she said the Commission’s proposal for a “Google tax” on search engines “definitely threatens” freedom to share news on the Internet.

“Journalists have absolutely nothing to gain from the extension of copyright law to press publishers,” she said. “If users of social networks are only able to link to European news if they have first bought a licence, we will see a massive increase in content from sites not bound by this copyright law,” she warned, adding this will encourage “fake news” sites and state-sponsored publishers like Russia Today.