Ancillary copyright: Facebook rejects publishers’ demand

Facebook once again shows that the social network believes it is above the law. Unlike Google, it still does not want to pay royalties for the use of press content.

Ancillary copyright: Facebook does not pay

The social network Facebook still does not want to pay royalties for the use of content from German press publishers. According to the collecting society Corint Media, the U.S. group has rejected corresponding claims in the millions.

As it says in a notification dated December 22, 2021, Facebook simply does not consider the current use of publication from the German press to be subject to licensing. In France, however, the Meta Group already pays for publications.

Corint Media believes that Facebook should pay a three-digit million amount (190 million euros) to German media houses for the use of press content in 2022. However, Facebook had announced after the new ancillary copyright came into force that it did not intend to acquire any licenses. Instead, the social network only wanted to publish license-free content from a press release, such as individual words or short excerpts.

Markus Runde and Christoph Schwennicke, managing director Corint Media, are however of the opinion that Facebook and the Meta company evade the valid laws and one believes that “one the rules to set itself to be able.”

Facebook is thus pursuing the same strategy that search engine giant Google used in 2013. Although Google, unlike Facebook, is quite willing to make payments, but has not yet agreed with Corint Media on the claims for the year 2022. These amount to 420 million euros.

It is therefore to be expected that in the case of both Facebook and Google there will be a legal dispute about payments under the current ancillary copyright law. Whether and in what amount royalty payments have to be made will therefore presumably have to be decided by the courts in the end.