French publication Agence France-Presse (AFP) sued X—formerly Twitter—over its “clear refusal” to discuss potential payment for the distribution of the news agency’s content yesterday (Aug. 2).
The legal action, for which AFP seeking an urgent injunction before the Judicial Court of Paris, stems from X’s alleged non-compliance with a law France enacted in July 2019, called “neighbouring rights,” which compels large online platforms to open talks with publishers seeking remuneration for news.
“These rights were established to enable news agencies and publishers to be remunerated by digital platforms which retain most of the monetary value generated by the distribution of news content,” AFP said in its statement. “The Agency will continue to employ the appropriate legal means with each relevant platform to ensure the fair distribution of the value generated by the sharing of news content.”
The law’s author, senator David Assouline, claimed “publishers hold the balance of power under the law,” but in practice, it’s not quite so straightforward. Researchers worry such agreements tackle systemic imbalances because the concentration of power when it comes to news dissemination still lies with a handful of private companies.
Quotable: Musk criticizes AFP’s legal action
“This is bizarre. They want us to pay *them* for traffic to their site where they make advertising revenue and we don’t!?” —Elon Musk’s Aug. 2 tweet
Tech giants and neighbouring rights in France, by the digits
500 million euros (then $593 million): Fine France’s antitrust watchdog slapped on Alphabet-owned Google in July 2021 for failing to comply with orders on how to conduct talks with the country’s news publishers. The agency threatened fines amounting to €900,000 per day if Google didn’t present an offer of remuneration to publishers within two months
Unknown: The amount Facebook (now Meta) spent on a multiyear agreement with Alliance de la presse d’information générale (APIG) in France to pay French publishers for resharing their content on its platforms in October 2021. When Google updated a similar deal with APIG last March, its monetary terms were also not known
300: National, regional and local news groups represented by APIG that stand to benefit from the tech behemoths’ deals
Rabbit hole: AFP passes on neighbouring rights to journalists
In May 2022, AFP became the first media company to give its journalists a slice of the neighbouring rights paid by platforms. The three-year agreements signed between three unions—General Confederation of Labour (CGT), Workers Force (FO) and National Union of Journalists (SNJ)—and AFP management, assure a minimum gross amount of €275 ($300) annually per journalist working full time all year round.
For journalists based in a European Union country where neighbouring rights are less favourable than in France, and for journalists based in non-EU countries that do not recognise neighbouring rights, the publication offered a compensatory payment.
In total, around 1600 full-time AFP journalists stood to benefit at the time of the announcement.
Case of interest
Earlier this week, X sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH)—a group of independent researchers face legal action for documenting hate speech on Twitter. Musk was attempting to “bully us into silence,” CCDH chief executive Imran Ahmed said in response, adding that “Musk is trying to ‘shoot the messenger’ who highlights the toxic content on his platform rather than deal with the toxic environment he’s created.”
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