Several distinguished French media teams led by newspapers similar to Le Monde and Le Figaro mentioned Tuesday that they’re suing social media platform X, accusing it of working their content material with out cost.
Newspapers together with Le Figaro, Les Echos, Le Parisien, Le Monde, Courrier International, Huffington Post and Le Nouvel Obs mentioned in an announcement that they had been launching joint motion in opposition to the social media firm run by U.S. billionaire Elon Musk.
Last week, Agence France-Presse (AFP) sued X over the identical problem and a court docket listening to has been set for May 15, 2025, in accordance with the company’s administration.
The French media teams accuse the location previously referred to as Twitter of violating so-called neighboring rights, which, beneath a European directive adopted into French legislation, are due when social media platforms republish news content material.
The newspapers and AFP had already requested for an emergency injunction in opposition to X, which they accuse of not negotiating.
On May 24, a Paris tribunal agreed with the media firms and gave X two months to offer business information that may permit them to evaluate the earnings it earns from their content material.
The social media web site “has not yet complied” with this choice, “demonstrating its continued intent to avoid its legal obligations,” the newspapers mentioned, justifying their newest swimsuit.
Last week, round 50 different primarily regional French media teams mentioned they’d filed authorized motion in opposition to Microsoft, one other U.S. digital big.
They are claiming a number of million euros in a collection of summons filed with Paris courts beneath the cost of “counterfeiting.”
The problem of neighboring rights has poisoned relations between the French press and web firms for the previous 5 years.
In 2021, agreements had been signed with Meta, proprietor of Facebook, and in 2022 with Google. Some had been framework agreements, and others particular person preparations.
But final March issues once more took a confrontational flip when the French Competition Authority fined Google 250 million euros ($265 million), accusing it of failing to satisfy a few of its commitments made in 2022.
Source: www.dailysabah.com