Google has struck licensing deals with 300 news publishers in Europe in its latest effort to comply with a recently introduced European Union copyright law.
The tech giant signed the agreements with national, local and specialist news publications in Germany, Hungary, France, Austria, the Netherlands and Ireland and said discussions with many others are ongoing.
European Union countries have been adopting into local law a 2019 EU directive granting publishers additional rights over their content.
The new law allows search engines like Google to link to and use snippets of news content, while giving publishers new rights when extended previews are used online.
It doesn’t, however, specify where the line between the two lies. The agreements are aimed at avoiding costly and lengthy lawsuits over that distinction.
