European media body welcomes EU’s copyright move

By Zuhal Demirci

ANKARA (AA) - A Europe-wide media body, which Anadolu Agency is a founding member, welcomed a copyright reform by the European Union.

In a statement, the European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA) said that the body “supports the inclusion of news agencies as beneficiaries of the new Copyright Directive.”

On Wednesday, the E.U. reached a provisional deal on copyright law that introduces changes to existing EU copyright rules as part of creating a true EU digital single market, a senior EU official said.

European Commission Vice-President, Andrus Ansip wrote on Twitter: "Agreement reached on #copyright! Europeans will finally have modern copyright rules fit for the digital age with real benefits for everyone: guaranteed rights for users, fair remuneration for creators, clarity of rules for platforms."

The EANA statement quoted Peter Kropsch, the president of the EANA, and president and CEO of German news agency DPA as saying: “It is our opinion that this is a great step forward for the European media and consequently for the European news agencies as an integral part of the business, as it provides the opportunity of further developing quality news services by our professional journalists for our partners, clients, and readers.”

According to the statement, the new copyright rules would also “provide leverage for news agencies facing greater competition from tech giants, and allows for a fairer environment in which everyone should have a chance to evolve”.

The new regulation is also important for millions of “European citizens who benefit from unbiased news from news agencies all around Europe,” the statement added.

“EANA would like to remind EU member states that we favored the massively adopted Parliament version which protected short extracts, these extracts being the core of the news flow,” it added.

With the new law, Internet platforms like Google will have to pay fees to the content producers to be able to publish news stories in its search results.

Internet platforms like YouTube will have to remove content violating the copyright directive and pay more to the content providers.

Digital platforms like Google, Facebook and Twitter will take measures to prevent users from uploading publications protected by the copyright directive.

The tentative law still needs to be officially approved by the European Parliament and the EU Council.