Switzerland in favor of paying for journalistic content on the internet

The Swiss government has come out in favor of changes to copyright law to require large providers of Internet — including social networks and search engines — to pay media companies for the use of journalistic content, even if it is just short excerpts.

The Federal Council, Switzerland’s executive branch, announced Wednesday that it has opened a four-month investigation into proposed changes to improve compensation for journalists and media companies.

The government noted the importance of public debate in a democracy and the fact that part of that debate today takes place online.

“The content offered by search engines, the social networks and multimedia platforms is largely based on journalistic works by traditional publishing media”says a government note. Excerpts from journalistic content are currently not protected under Swiss copyright laws.

The government said that media companies and journalists do not receive any remuneration from online platforms that use their works. The calculation of such compensation will have to be negotiated by the interested parties.

“The Federal Council proposes that large internet providers be obliged to remunerate media companies for the use of excerpts”the government said. “For example, if a large search engine shows excerpts from newspaper articles in its search results, the Internet provider will have to pay compensation for it in the future.”

Only the largest internet companies — whose users per year equal at least the 10% of the Swiss population — would be obliged to pay such compensation. The population of Switzerland was around 8.8 million at the end of last year.

The Swiss government cited changes in other countries, including the European Union — of which it is not a member — that have helped media companies defend their interests in online services.

Source: AP