For the second time in four years, Agence France-Presse has issued a lawsuit against a major media platform over non-negotiated payments for online content use. The platform in question is X, previously recognized as Twitter. Filed in a French court, AFP seeks to obligate X for dialogues concerning potential compensation for sharing AFP’s articles and images on their platform. According to French Copyright Law, X is obliged to partake.
France assimilated the concept of “neighboring rights” under the EU copyright directive in 2019. Major online platforms like Google, Facebook, and Twitter are required to negotiate licensing deals with news publishers for their news content display. Recently though, X, under its rebranding initiative from Twitter, has been conspicuous for its refusal to indulge in conversations regarding implementing these rights, AFP claims.
In its recent statement, AFP stated that the action intends “to compel Twitter, in accordance with the law, to provide all the necessary elements required for assessing the remuneration owed to AFP under the neighboring rights legislation.” X has yet to respond to the lawsuit. Elon Musk, the CEO of the company, scorned AFP’s move, labeling it as “bizarre” in a social media post.
Last year, Google was fined €500 million by France’s antitrust watchdog for failing to comply with mandates to initiate talks with AFP and two more news publishers. These publishers had accused Google following the instigation of the copyright law. However, since then, Google has pledged to resolve the dispute and has announced deals with AFP and several other leading French news establishments. Agreements have also been signed between Facebook and some French publishers.
The ongoing suit against X is being filed in the French court adept in solving intellectual property issues, as explained by Julien Guinot-Deléry, a media partner at Gide Loyrette Nouel in Paris. Guinot-Deléry, who represented AFP in the Google case and is actively involved in the current case, stated – “Both cases involve intellectual property, or the appropriation of content that AFP produced and owns.” He further noted that the principle of “neighboring rights” of fair compensation applies to X, despite its not having as dominant a presence as Google in news distribution.
Lastly, the suit, filed recently, marks the beginning of a procedure that could stretch till the end of the current year or even the onset of next year, Julien Guinot-Deléry informed. AFP, meanwhile, confirms its commitment to employ legal methods with each relevant platform to ensure fair value distribution resulting from news content sharing. (Read more here)