Neighboring rights: agreement with Le Figaro, 25% paid to journalists – Image

The CFDT, CGC, CGT unions and the management of Le Figaro have concluded an agreement ensuring the payment to journalists of 25% of the neighboring rights collected by the title for the use of its content by Meta and Google, management announced Thursday. The internal agreement, the result of discussions launched according to him in 2021, concerns the sharing of sums linked to contracts concluded with Meta (Facebook) and Google. It “will be reinforced by possible “future” agreements with other market players”, underlines a press release. For now, each Figaro journalist will receive, retroactively, 2,900 euros for the period from October 2019 to December 2023, according to the press release. A payment “of around 800 euros per journalist should” be added for 2024 “and subsequent years,” it is added. “We signed until the end of 2025” to give ourselves “visibility” and allow us to “re-discuss” the agreement if necessary, indicated the general director of the Figaro group Marc Feuillée. If he is “delighted” by “fair and logical remuneration” for the 550 press cards for Le Figaro, the manager also says he is “concerned for the future”.

“The Google agreements are currently being renegotiated with Apig and the Facebook agreements will be renegotiable in 2025,” he recalls. In addition, a “certain number of American platforms”, including X, “do not comply with neighboring rights”, five years after the promulgation of the dedicated law, argues Mr. Feuillée, calling for the establishment of an “arbitration mechanism”. In June, a similar agreement was concluded at the daily Le Monde, ensuring journalists a payment of 25% of neighboring rights collected for the use of their content by the platforms and the American artificial intelligence start-up OpenAI.

The role of Apig

Extended to digital platforms in 2019 by a European directive, rights related to copyright allow newspapers, magazines or press agencies to be remunerated when their articles, photos, videos, etc. are reused by web giants. Over the years, and with difficulty, framework agreements have been concluded for the payment of related rights to several media, as well as individual agreements such as with Le Monde or Le Figaro. The confidential amounts received by the latter are those “negotiated by Apig”, the Alliance for the general information press, which brings together nearly 300 titles, Marc Feuillée told AFP.