(Reuters) — Poland has submitted a complaint to the European Union's top court against copyright rules adopted by the bloc in April to protect Europe's creative industries, which Warsaw says may result in preventive censorship.
Google LLC will have to pay publishers for news snippets and Facebook Inc. filter out protected content under copyright rules aimed at ensuring fair compensation for the EU's $1 trillion creative industries.
Poland has said the overhaul was a step backward, arguing that the filter requirement could lay the foundation for censorship.
"This system may result in adopting regulations that are analogous to preventive censorship, which is forbidden not only in the Polish constitution but also in the EU treaties," Deputy Foreign Minister Konrad Szymanski told public broadcaster TVP Info.
U.S.-based Facebook Inc. and Google L.L.C. could be forced to pay billions of dollars to media publishers, music companies and filmmakers if a proposed copyright rule is formally adopted in Europe, Fox News reported. The European Union parliament approved an amended version of the copyright law on Sept. 19. Under the proposed law, news aggregation platforms like Google and Facebook will need to pay publishers for showing news snippets or linking to news stories on other websites.