Last week, the Polish parliament (Sejm) passed amendments to Poland’s copyright law to implement a 2019 European Union (EU) directive that requires major internet platforms to compensate publishers for the reuse of their content on their services, including Google Search and Meta’s Facebook.
Publishers lobbied to amend the bill to include rules to make compensation negotiations with major tech companies easier, but media groups said the government largely ignored their pleas in its final amendments to the bill.
“Due to rapid development, [technology companies] “They have embezzled a large part of the advertising revenue that funds Polish media. They use the content we create for free and without penalty and send the profits abroad,” the open letter said.
Media organisations said they needed the Polish government’s support to create a fair law, warning that without regulation between media workers and big tech companies, everything would end up in a years-long battle in court.
Publishers and tech companies are already locked in protracted legal battles in countries such as France: the French competition authority fined Google €250 million in March for failing to comply with rules, and French news agency AFP is currently taking copyright action against X.
