The main Danish media will come together to collectively negotiate their copyrights with internet giants, such as Google and Facebook, announced on Monday one of those responsible for the initiative, unprecedented in Europe. Some 30 groups, including the public television networks DR and TV2 and the Ritzau press agency, have founded an organization that will be officially launched on Friday, Stig Ørskov, CEO of JP-Politikens Hus, the main group, told AFP. Danish print media.
The organization will represent all those media to collectively negotiate and collect the amount of the rights, including the new related rights, recognized by a European directive.
“It will function as a copyright collective in our discussions with big tech companies like Google and Facebook,” Ørskov said. “Our main request is that the tech giants pay a fair share for the information content created by the Danish media that they use and profit from,” he argued.
In the European Union (EU), a 2019 directive on copyright established a “related right” for the benefit of publishers and news agencies to remunerate the use of their online content. This directive has already been translated into a Google framework agreement with the French press in 2020, but payments remain bilateral and the agreement does not cover all media.
In the Danish model, groups give up defending their own products.
The approach, a first in Europe, coincides with the preparations of two directives in Brussels, called DSA and DSM, to strengthen regulation of digital platforms. According to Stig Ørskov, the discussions could start “quite quickly” and “there are already informal contacts with Google.”
In this regard, Google told AFP that it “respects” the strategy of the Danish media. “We have already proposed that they start talking with them, with the aim of reaching fair and reasonable agreements,” the group said.
