| December 7, 2020 According to Döpfner, the platforms reached such a dominant position in the digital sphere that fair competition does not apply any more. News professionals, including publishers, journalist, or bloggers, are so dependent on the reach they can achieve on Google or Facebook, that they cannot defend themselves on their own any more. A search engine with a 98 per cent market share becomes a biased “response engine”, comments Mathias Döpfner. In the interview, Döpfner deplores that the German Government does not act fast enough with a quick and appropriate national application of the European framework on publishers’ rights. In a draft bill recently issued, the German Justice Ministry’s draft bill obliges holders of rights to apply for licences instead of requiring platforms to conclude licence agreements, as the EU directive stipulates. For Döpfner, as well as other creative industry trade bodies representatives, like the German Music Industry Association, this “violates European and international copyright law”.