Egypt's editors-in-chief meet over copyrights of social media ads

: Head of Egypt's Press Syndicate Abdel-Mohsen Salama will hold a meeting with editors-in-chief of national, private and party newspapers to discuss the strategy to restore newspapers’ "stolen rights" from Google and Facebook.

This came after the Parliament had approved on Sunday the article in the newly submitted Media Regulation draft law to impose taxes on advertisements posted on social media websites and Google.

Salama said that the article included in the Media Regulation draft law to impose taxes on Google and social media will save the future of journalism as well as the Egyptian websites’ resources.

Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook as well as Google earn millions from posting ads and making use of the Egyptian online news industry. Hence, Egyptian online newspapers have voiced their fears over the future of digital newspapers since November 2015.

Though this growth in digital advertising draws reasonable comfort for the industry of digital marketing, it fails to compensate the downturn across the board.

This growth negatively affects the print news industry, which is moving toward paid online subscriptions in an attempt to escape from the domination of tech giants.

In this regard, the Parliament passed the chapter two on "practicing the media institution for its activities" inthe draft law regulating the press and media. One of the chapter’s articles reads that it is not permissible for a website to bring advertisements from the Egyptian market if it is not subscribed in the Supreme Council and subject to the provisions of Law No. 11 of 1991 on tax evasion.

Article 59 of the draft law stipulates that no media outlet or website shall be established or operated, prior to obtaining a license from the Supreme Council.

Request to establish or operate a media outlet or a website shall be submitted to the Supreme Council, which shall consider the request within a period not exceeding 90 days of the application filed for a return not exceeding LE 250,000 for a media outlet and LE 50,000 for a website, as referred by Article 60.

The license period is five years, and may be renewed by submitting a request to the Supreme Council six months before its expiry, in accordance with the provisions set out in this law.

The new bill regulating media and press provides journalists with legal protection, Osama Heikal, president of the Parliamentarian Committee of Culture and Information, said on June 9.

The law stipulates that whoever attacks a journalist physically, while on duty, shall be punished by a jail term and a fine of no less than LE 10,000 and no more than LE 20,000.