Last week, Poland’s parliament, the Sejm, passed an amendment to copyright law implementing a 2019 European Union directive requiring major internet platforms to compensate publishers for the reuse of their content on services like Google’s Search and Facebook’s Meta.
Publishers pushed for the bill to be amended to establish rules that would allow them to better negotiate compensation with Big Tech giants. But the government largely ignored their demands in the final amendment to the law, the news groups said.
“Due to their rapid development, [technology companies] “Polish media have taken the lion’s share of advertising revenues that used to finance Polish media. They use the content we create for free and without being punished, while the profits are sent abroad,” the open letter reads.
The media said they needed the support of the Polish state to have fair legislation. They warned that if no regulation was put in place between media players and big tech companies, it would all end in a legal battle that would last for years.
In countries like France, publishers and tech companies have already faced lengthy court cases. The French competition authority fined Google €250 million in March for failing to comply with the rules, and French news agency AFP is currently suing X in a copyright case.
