Prominent French newspapers have gathered together against Elon Musk’s social media platform X, taking legal action following alleged usage of their content without compensation, Reuters reported.
The newspapers involved include Le Figaro, Les Echos, Le Parisien, Le Monde, Télérama, Courrier International, Huffington Post, Malesherbes Publications and Le Nouvel Obs.
All parties claim they are owed money by X — formerly Twitter — for using their content without direct payment; a right granted by “neighboring rights.” These rights were established under a European directive in 2019 in French law, which stipulates that compensation is due when digital platforms reuse their content.
Unlike Google and Meta, X has refused to negotiate with French news publishers, while also ignoring a court order by the Paris Court of Justice in May to provide information necessary for calculating the owed payments.
“The revenue from these rights, with the investment that it would enable its beneficiaries to make, is a boost to the plurality, independence and quality of the media, which are essential for freedom of expression and the right to information in our democratic society,” the newspaper said in a joint statement.
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In addition to the newspaper, French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) also called for an emergency injunction against Musk’s platform for not cooperating with negotiations.
On May 24, a Paris tribunal ruled in favor of the media companies and ordered X to provide financial data within two months. However, X has “not yet complied,” leading the media companies to file another lawsuit, accusing the platform of “demonstrating its continued intent to avoid its legal obligations.”
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Ongoing disputes
For years, France has been advocating for the rights and income of its news outlets, opposing the dominance of large tech companies that utilize news content without fair compensation. The European Union (EU) had opposed the problem by creating the “neighboring rights” to claim such compensation, the Guardian wrote.
Other than payment, the neighboring rights would also be used to require tech platforms to open talks with publishers when reuploading their content. Google and Meta had to give in to the agreements, providing some French media payment for their articles to appear online.
In March, a lawyer representing X argued that the platform was not subject to neighboring rights laws. Unlike Google or Facebook, X primarily relies on user-generated content rather than publishing original content.
AFP had been pursuing compensation from X since last year, when they previously opened up a lawsuit for the same payment issues.
“This move is aimed at compelling [X], in accordance with the law, to provide all the necessary elements required for assessing the remuneration owed to AFP under the neighboring rights legislations,” AFP said in a statement.
Musk naturally denied such a case, posting on X, “This is bizarre. They want us to pay them for traffic to their site where they make advertising revenue and we don’t?!”
X has not formally commented on any proceeding
Other than X, Microsoft is also under fire for similar reasons, as around 50 French publishers filed legal action against them on Nov. 8.
OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, declined to negotiate with two French press organizations regarding the use of content from 800 titles for a fee.
