PARIS, France (AFP) — Hundreds of journalists called Wednesday for European officials to take action against Google over its refusal to pay media companies for displaying their content in defiance of a strict new European Union (EU) copyright law.
France was the first country to ratify the law, which was passed this year and comes into force on Thursday to ensure publishers are compensated when their work is displayed online.
But Google said last month that articles, pictures and videos would be shown in search results only if media firms consent to let the tech giant use it for free.
If they refuse, only a headline and a bare link to the content will appear, Google said, almost certainly resulting in a loss of visibility and potential ad revenue for the publisher.
Around 800 journalists as well as photographers, filmmakers and media CEOs signed an open letter published in newspapers across Europe urging governments to ensure that Google and other tech firms comply with the new EU rule.
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“The law risks being stripped of all meaning before it even comes into force,” the letter said, calling Google’s move “a fresh insult to national and European sovereignty.”
“The existing situation, in which Google enjoys most of the advertising revenue generated by the news that it rakes in without any payment, is untenable and has plunged the media into a crisis that is deepening each year,” it said.
