Corint Media submits licence agreement to Facebook
A licence fee of 190 million euros in 2022 for the rights of the more than 240 rightholders represented so far
Press Release
Berlin, 2021-12-03
Corint Media Managing Directors Christoph Schwennicke and Markus Runde
After submitting a licence agreement to Google, Corint Media has now submitted a licence agreement to Facebook Ireland Ltd. as the operator of, among others, Facebook in Germany. Thus, it follows the legally required equal treatment. In the offer, Corint Media puts the remuneration in 2022 at 190 million euros. The diverse uses of press content are going to be licenced in Facebook services as well as on Instagram, which includes the integrated functions of a personalized newsfeed, web pages for companies, so-called “pages”, as well as instant messaging services, such as “Facebook Messenger” and collections of news content (“Facebook News”). The claim is calculated from a customary royalty rate on the relevant sales of the exploiting company in the respective market, which is in this case Facebook Ireland Ltd. in Germany.
The Arbitration Board at the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA) – responsible for evaluating tariff and remuneration issues – has long ago assessed a royalty rate of up to 11% on the turnover for the entire repertoire as fundamentally appropriate. Corint Media currently manages the rights of more than 240 digital press publications on the German market, and the percentage is reduced accordingly. For Facebook and its subsidiaries relevant to remuneration, the revenues generated in Germany are estimated at around five billion euros for 2020.
The requested sum ranks in international comparison. As early as mid-October 2021, Corint Media submitted a licence agreement to Google as the largest user of the press publishers’ right and called for negotiations. Corint Media is also in talks with Microsoft and other users.
Markus Runde and Christoph Schwennicke, Managing Directors of Corint Media state: “After Google, we have now been able to present Facebook, as another major user of the press publishers’ right, with a concrete offer based on the facts known to us. It is now a matter of establishing a concrete price with the largest users for the European-legitimized right in a timely and, above all, very transparent manner that does justice to the importance of the entire press on the web.”