Before the summer, I shared an update on our progress in reaching Extended News Previews (ENP) license agreements with owners of press publications under the EU Copyright Directive. As of today, we have agreements in place covering over 2,600 publications of all sizes across 16 countries. In addition to progressing with individual agreements, we are also pleased to share progress with collecting societies that are helping to reach many more publishers in several countries.

In Germany, Google and Corint Media, a collecting society that manages rights for several publishers, recently closed a multi-year interim licensing agreement that follows a proposal from the Copyright Arbitration Board (CAB) in Germany. The agreement follows an interim proposal by the CAB which both parties accepted, and the license payment to Corint is within the scope of what we have already agreed with many other publishers in Germany. We are happy with this progress and hope that we will also find a long term resolution in the ongoing proceeding with Corint Media.

And in France, we now cover license agreements with more than 350 French press publications, including an ENP agreement with Société des Droits Voisins de la Presse (DVP). DVP is a collecting society that covers a wide range of publishers. This is part of our efforts to conclude agreements with French publishers and associations.

This is in addition to the ENP agreement we concluded earlier in the year concerning the press publications of members of the Danish Press Publisher’s Collecting Society (DPCMO). We are also in active negotiations with other publisher rights collecting societies in other countries and are looking forward to negotiating with those collecting societies that are still forming.

Across Europe, we are continuing to roll out our online contracting solution, helping us to reach smaller, regional and local publications. The solution is now available in 12 countries.

Alongside these licensing deals, we continue to work with journalists, publishers and news organisations on some of the most pressing opportunities for the news industry. That includes partnering with FT Strategies to host a webinar called News in the Digital Age, A Future with AI, which focused on moving from AI experimentation to implementation. We also hosted more than 150 journalists at the News Impact Summit in Lisbon with the European Journalism Centre. Five journalists from across Europe received the Climate Journalism Award at the Summit for innovative, data-driven storytelling on the climate crisis. Through our programs, partnerships and products, we’re one of the world’s largest financial supporters of journalism.