European Innovative Media Publishers: “protect all types of business model”

 

18 January 2019

Further to earlier debates concerning article 11 (detailed more fully here), the CEO of European Innovative Media Publishers (a trade association representing small media publishers), Carlos Astiz, has called for a waivable press publishers’ right, so as not to unduly impact small businesses. They describe the current wording of article 11 as a “risk” for smaller businesses, potentially jeopardising their business model which primarily relies on web traffic from news aggregators. Surmising, they claim that “[t]his is not a measure that supports media pluralism”, with article 11 considering only larger publishers who have the leverage and ability to negotiate licensing agreements.