The fight for copyright raises controversy throughout Europe

France was the first country of the European Union which transposed into its national legislation the European directive on Copyright, and it is just this case that the Spanish creators they do not want it to be replicated here because it would establish a practice of “opaque agreements” between platforms and companies.

This has been denounced from the “Continue creating” platform, which brings together more than 45 associations of Spanish creators, before the announcement of the Spanish Government to follow “faithfully” the European directive approved in 2019 and that will be transposed into Spanish regulations on next November 2 after its approval in the council of ministers.

Specifically, if the French model is applied, according to “Continue creating”, a practice based on “opaque agreements, without any transparency”, between platforms and companies would be established.

If so, and according to the creators, the “law of the jungle” would be installed on the Internet in Spain “making it impossible” for (as they literally quote from the Directive) “the authors of the works incorporated in a press publication to receive an adequate part of the income that press publishers receive from the use of their press publications by service providers of the information society ”.

The French model

But, what has happened in France since the European copyright regulations were transposed in 2019? Well, this law establishes in the Gallic country that creators of informative content have the right to receive financial compensation from those who reproduce their products in whole or in part, although the way in which those contents were defined was not entirely precise and gave rise to interpretations.

The measure obliges internet companies (such as Google or social networks) to negotiate the granting of reproduction licenses for these contents with publication publishers and press agencies.

Google appealed that obligation to the Supreme Court, which ruled against it in 2020, after which it negotiated and reached an agreement with the association that groups French newspapers (APIG).

Subsequently, Google was fined 500 million euros last July by the French Competition Authority for not negotiating in good faith, a decision that was appealed by the company in court.

Facebook and APIG announced this month an agreement to obtain licenses and the use of content by the social network, although the agreed amounts were not disclosed.

With the eyes of Spanish creators on France, the EFE Agency takes a tour of several European countries to learn about the situation regarding these regulations.

The German case

The Bundestag (German lower house) approved on May 20 the law for the transposition into national legislation of the European copyright reform.

The norm was promoted by the main German publishing groups and was considered a success in the defense of the author’s rights; thus, and after its entry into force, Internet search engines were obliged to acquire licenses from German press publishers for disseminating their content.

But for now this will not have an impact, since Google managed to turn it around last July and for the moment it will not pay to link the news of the German media, having obtained that the majority of the publishing groups in the country authorize it to keep doing it without shelling out a euro.

As reported by the American giant, after getting the “yes” from the majority of the German media, it will exclude from its Google News news service those media that do not give their explicit consent to be included for free.

Bloggers and online technology magazines highlighted the fear of publishers to stay out of Google and pointed out as significant the case of Axel Springer, owner of the newspapers Bild and Die Welt, among others, who stood out in favor of the law and that now you have given your consent.

A Google spokesperson made it clear that it is a temporary authorization, while the technical modifications that its digital media may need to protect intellectual property rights are studied.

Italy, waiting

In August, the Italian Council of Ministers approved a project that recognized the European directive on copyright and is currently under study in Parliament, before being published in the Official Gazette and definitively adopted.

The document establishes that digital platforms, including social networks, will have to have the authorization of the rights holders when they grant public access to works protected by copyright uploaded by their users, with the exception of online encyclopedias and other texts. of didactic and scientific repertoire.

One of the main rules is financial compensation by these platforms to journalistic content managers and other publications for the use of their articles.

Users who use this news for private or non-commercial use will not have to pay, nor will those who use hyperlinks, single words or very short extracts.

Italy, as happened to Spain, was one of the twenty countries filed by the European Commission in July for delays in the incorporation of this copyright directive. The situation in the rest of the EU countries.

On June 7, the deadline for the countries of the European Union to incorporate this copyright directive into national legislation, which the European Union approved with the aim that artists, writers or journalists receive a higher remuneration for their works. posted on the internet.

To date, only Germany, Hungary, Malta and the Netherlands have notified the European Commission of the complete transposition of the directive.

France, Denmark, the Czech Republic and Lithuania have partially done so, while the rest, including Spain, which by not having incorporated it into its legal framework, Brussels opened an infringement procedure for them on July 26.

Last June, before the deadline to transpose the norm expired, the European Commission published guidelines to clarify the balance on the internet between the right to intellectual property and freedom of expression and the role of large platforms to guarantee it.

Platforms such as Facebook, YouTube or TikTok must reach agreements with the copyright owners so that their contents can continue to be displayed on their web pages, although if they do not reach this agreement, they will be exempt from blocking the publication if they show that they have all done efforts to sign the contract.

In addition, Brussels explained how the algorithms responsible for detecting content subject to copyright, one of the most controversial aspects of the text, should act.

The algorithms must be able to detect, for example, if a user has posted a complete movie illegally recorded in the cinema on YouTube. In that case, they should remove it, but not if a person uses a small fragment of that film to comment on it in a personal video.

The filters will not be able to eliminate the photos or memes that are published as a parody, nor the links in encyclopedias such as Wikipedia that are not for profit.