Neighboring rights: French media take X to court

The hatchet has been dug up in the neighboring rights issue in France: after the regional press against Microsoft, several other newspapers, including Le Figaro, Le Monde and Le Parisien, as well as the AFP, are taking legal action against the social network ex-Twitter), accused of using their content without paying.

Agence France-Presse summoned X to the merits last week, and a hearing at the Paris court was set for May 15, 2025, we learned from its management.

The other action in progress, announced Tuesday in a press release, is carried out jointly by Les Échos and Le Parisien (which belong to the group of the same name), the Le Monde group (Le Monde, Télérama, Courrier International, Le Huffington Post, Le Nouvel Obs and Malesherbes Publications, publisher of La Vie) and Le Figaro.

They are also suing the social network, owned by American billionaire Elon Musk, before the Paris judicial court.

Before this action on the merits, these newspapers, as well as the AFP for its part, had summoned X and its French subsidiary for summary proceedings (an emergency procedure), accusing it of not wanting to negotiate.

On May 24, the summary judge of the Paris judicial court ruled in their favor. He ordered the social network to provide them, within two months, with a series of commercial data allowing them to assess the income it earns from their content.

“Will to evade legal obligations”

X/Twitter “has (…) not complied” with this decision until now, “thus demonstrating its invariable desire to evade its legal obligations”, the newspapers denounced to justify their new legal action .

Asked by AFP, X’s lawyer did not comment.

Rights related to copyright were established for digital platforms by a 2019 European directive. They allow newspapers, magazines or press agencies to be remunerated when their content is reused by digital giants.

“A conviction of Twitter (…) within the framework of this new procedure on the merits would constitute an additional step in the implementation of the legal provisions on neighboring rights”, estimated the newspapers which are suing X.

Active support of Donald Trump, elected President of the United States for the second time, Elon Musk is frequently accused of promoting disinformation on X, where he poses as an adversary of the media.

Before this action against X, around fifty other French press publishers, mainly regional, announced on November 8 that they had filed legal action against the American giant Microsoft.

Several million euros at stake

In total, several million euros are claimed by titles of groups like Ouest-France or Ebra, in a series of summons filed with the Paris judicial court for “counterfeiting”.

This long-term issue of neighboring rights has poisoned relations between the French press and the internet giants for five years.

However, it experienced a lull in 2021: after a bitter battle, agreements were signed from October 2021 with Meta, owner of Facebook, and from March 2022 with Google.

Some were framework agreements concluded with collective groups of newspapers, the members of which were then each able to negotiate directly with the platforms. Others were individual agreements.

The framework agreements are currently being renegotiated.

But last March, the matter once again took a conflicting turn: the Competition Authority imposed a fine of 250 million euros on Google, accusing it of not having respected some of the commitments made in 2022.

Refusal to open negotiations with publishers

“Unlike Google and Meta, X/Twitter has (…) never agreed to open negotiations with French press publishers in order to respect the legal framework on copyright and related rights, and this despite several months of steps and then amicable follow-ups”, underlined the newspapers which are suing X.

While the issue of neighboring rights has not even yet been definitively resolved, the media are facing a new challenge in remuneration for their content, with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) programs.

In September, OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, refused group negotiations with two French press organizations to use the content of the 800 titles they represent for a fee.

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