Felix Reda – Digital Markets Act: Dispute over press publishers shows what’s wrong with EU legislation

"... the last round of negotiations on Thursday, March 24, was overshadowed by a debate on the ancillary copyright for press publishers. At the last minute, the European Commission brought into play a proposed amendment to the Digital Markets Act that would have obliged search engines and social networks to offer publishers uniform tariffs for payment for press snippets displayed in search results or social media posts."

"It is obvious that this “compromise” has little to do with the original provision, which is about platforms, especially Apple’s App Store, not being allowed to charge arbitrarily high fees to the third-party companies who depend on them. In the case of the ancillary copyright, however, it is the press publishers, i.e. the third-party providers, who demand fees from the platforms, not the other way around. "

"So what led the Commission to pull a press publishers’ lobby proposal out of the hat so late in the negotiations that the chief negotiator of the European Parliament told Euractiv on the day of the last negotiation that this proposal had never been discussed with him before? For the time being, we can only speculate, but at the latest after the conclusion of the legislative process, the Commission will have to provide some answers under the Freedom of Information Regulation."