Google has reached an agreement with more than 100 media companies operating on the Austrian market with regard to the ancillary copyright. This means that Google can continue to show a preview of news search queries from websites of these houses in the future.
Previously, anyone who entered a query about a current news topic on Google automatically saw a sentence summarizing the article in addition to the headline. As of today, Google is only allowed to bring this extended preview if the publisher from whose website the message originates agrees and receives a fee for it. The background to this is the copyright amendment that was passed last year. An ancillary copyright was introduced therein. Anyone who uses content without sufficient permission must therefore expect sanctions from today.
Offers to 400 publishers
Overall, Google had sent more than 400 publishers an offer. As a result, there was no agreement with most of the publishers. Starting tomorrow, their content will only appear as a link and headline. According to Google, however, agreement was reached with most of the major media houses. “We continue to actively negotiate with press publishers and are doing everything we can to finalize as many agreements as possible,” Google Austria director Christine Antlanger-Winter wrote in a Google blog post yesterday.
According to the Association of Austrian Newspapers (VÖZ), the majority of its member media concluded an interim agreement with Google in order to achieve legal certainty and to ensure the possibility of further implementation of the ancillary copyright. However, VÖZ Managing Director Gerald Grünberger made it clear: “Any payments from Google are, within the meaning of the interim contract, a payment on account to the media houses of publishing origin and in no way adequate financial compensation for the ancillary copyright.”
Google generated 4.5 million euros in Austria in 2020 from clicks on ads in news-related search queries.
Source: Nachrichten
