The platform has never wished to open negotiations with French press publishers for this remuneration provided for by law. A similar action was taken against Microsoft on Friday.
Press publishers are going back into battle to have their rights respected. After the announcement on Friday of the taking of Microsoft to court by around fifty French newspapers, and of LinkedIn by Le Figaro it is the turn, this Tuesday, of X to be targeted by legal action. The groups Le Figaro, Le Monde (The World, Telerama, L’Obs, The Huffington Post, The life), and Les Échos-Le Parisien took the social network to court in Paris. Objective: to force it to finally open negotiations with French press publishers in order to pay them remuneration for the use of their content in the name of neighboring rights, an obligation since a European directive adopted in 2019.
The proliferation of legal actions in recent days owes nothing to chance. According to French law, which came into force on October 25, 2019, publishers have the right to claim up to five years of arrears. Since October 26, 2024, each day passed is therefore a « lost day » in the calculation of remuneration — but the summons interrupts this prescription.
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Negotiations between the press and American platforms on neighboring rights have always been conflictual. Those with X are non-existent, the social network refusing to initiate discussions despite numerous reminders. In fact, he believes that he is not subject to this law: it is his users who share links to press articles, and not himself. « The use of content produced by our 700 journalists must be subject to remuneration under the neighboring rights directive. X, like other platforms that generate traffic and revenue through our content, must comply. It is about safeguarding quality information, the true foundation of our democracy. »declares Pierre Louette, CEO of the Les Échos-Le Parisien group.
A court order left unanswered
This situation led Le Figaro, Le Monde and Les Échos-Le Parisien, just like AFP, to take X to court for the first time in 2023. This summary action was crowned with legal success. Last May, the judge ordered the social network to transmit to the media within two months information necessary to calculate the amounts due: number of views and click-through rates of their publications, amount of X’s advertising revenue in France, explanations on the operation of publication sorting algorithms, etc. But six months later, the American social network remains deaf to this order, even though it was accompanied by a daily financial penalty. The courts must now transmit to X the total amount of these penalties.
This legal action may take years, during which our media will be deprived of the income that allows them to invest.
Marc Feuillée, general manager of the Le Figaro group
This one-way dialogue explains why the publishers are launching a new procedure, this time on the merits. « This legal action may take years, during which our media will be deprived of the income which allows them to invest »recalls Marc Feuillée, general director of the Le Figaro group. « It is urgent that the law on neighboring rights be revised in order to include an arbitration mechanism in the event of difficulties in the discussions. » Australia has chosen this path in 2021. If the media and Gafam are unable to agree, it is an arbitration commission which decides and imposes a sum. A fearsomely effective sword of Damocles…
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French press players are also preparing for the renegotiation of the framework agreements signed in 2021 with Meta and Google. Some fear that these two giants will try to negotiate down the amounts because, since then, the traffic sent by Facebook and Google to the media has plummeted. Meta claims that Internet users’ uses have changed, but publishers believe on the contrary that the group has modified its algorithms to less expose the online press on its social network.
Another front is opening with generative artificial intelligence companies. « These players could decide to sign contracts, title by title, with a few media »explains Louis Dreyfus, chairman of the board of directors of the Le Monde group. The latter has concluded such an agreement with OpenAI, which will thus be able to draw on daily articles in order to display up-to-date answers in ChatGPT. « We are at the beginning of the story of the AI revolution and the daily press has a role to play in it »he pleads. But, unless the legislator intervenes, this potential windfall will not benefit everyone, unlike neighboring rights. This summer, OpenAI closed the door to any group negotiations with representatives of the French press.
