Press Publishers Right- Seminar

EU law requires directives agreed by the Commission, Parliament and Council to be implemented at national level within two years. The press publishers right (Article 15) is in the process, with June 21st 2021 as the deadline. France is ahead of the pack, with 26 other EU countries at various stages. And a contentious directive with some loose wording creates scope for confusion, and opportunities for the major platforms (like Google) to escape the intent of the law – which is that they pay for using press material.

To support effective licensing of Article 15 rights PDLN hosted 35 publisher representatives from 18 countries to discuss progress on the translation of the EU law on June 2nd.  The issues of definition were key, especially the directives ‘a few words’ and ‘mere hyperlinks’. These EU fudges leave scope for uneven definition at national level. Samir Ouachtati of the French publisher association Alliance described the French approach has been to repeat the words and add supporting context. Not everyone has the same legislative support (many governments were hostile to the PPR) and others are forced to create tighter definitions (though many would argue leaving loosely defined words in the hands of the courts is unhelpful).  Word count based proposals leave national parliaments scope to open gaps with simple numerical amendments.

German, Polish and Dutch presentations underlined the fact that the principle of publisher’s rights are still being fought over and that battleground creates significant obstacles for national implementations. The wide picture is of publisher representatives fighting difficult complex battles and the resulting probability of uneven outcomes in EU member states handicapping licensing activity as a result. 

Some of the PPR seminar attendees