COPYRIGHT ROW
The fine came due to increasing international pressure on online platforms such as Google which seeks, part of Alphabet Inc, and Facebook to share more of the revenue they make from using media outlets’ news.
Google appeals against France’s disproportionate tax on Copyright issues. France has fined Google $591 million in July over a dispute with local media about paying for news content. This dispute is a part of a more significant battle by authorities in Europe against google for giving compensation and credits to local media outlets.Â
The vice-president of Google in France, Sebastien Missoffe, said that “This dispute will be a trendsetter against big tech companies in other parts of Europe.”
France was the first in 27 European nations to act on block’s 2019 copyright directives. It allows different media outlets to ask for compensation. Against tech giants like Google seeks justice and Facebook for using their news articles over their platforms. It also made compulsory for taking licence from different sources for using their news articles.Â
France authorities were taking a stance and said that “Google’s appeal, which Paris’ court of appeal will rule on, would not hold up the fine, which the U.S. tech giant must still pay. It could not say how long the appeal process would take.”
SIMILAR CASES FROM DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE WORLD
Australia became the first country to pass world-first media legislation in parliament. It will force Google and Facebook to compensate for a fair payment. To news organisations for using their content in Facebook’s newsfeed and Google’s search. Â
Critics of the law said that it punishes innovative companies and amounts to a money-grab by struggling — but politically connected — traditional media.
According to Australia, this is the fundamental and most desirable law to create more job opportunities and prevent job losses. Google and Facebook like companies try to grab news from different media outlets. Then show them over their platform without giving credits to local media outlets.
People find all the information on the same platform, so they don’t bother to search over different media platforms. That creates heavy losses to those financially weak companies and finally led to job losses.Â
Some of the intellectuals praised this step taken by the Australian Government.Google seeks justice. Australian Government took significant fearless steps against big tech giants, which are strengths to the Australian economy’s backbone. Finally, Facebook and Google seeks to pay compensation to media outlets and accepted the law made by the Australian Government.Â
WAY AHEAD FOR GOOGLE IN FRANCE
History might repeat itself. Google’s nightmare may become a reality. According to some experts, there is a narrow escape for Google against this fine. The country is liable to make changes in its policy and framework. Google would never want to lose such a big market in France.
France is known as the ‘Big Daddy of Europe’, so Google will never like to lose Europe’s market. We will have to watch and analyse the decision of the International Court of Justice in this case. This decision might become a guideline for other nations.Â
