In a press release posted Wednesday August 2, Agence France-Presse (AFP) has announced that it is taking Twitter – renamed X – to court, in order to obtain compensation for the use of its content on the social network. The agency seized the Paris court in summary proceedings, an accelerated procedure, so that Twitter communicates to it, “ in accordance with the law, all the elements necessary for the evaluation of the remuneration due to him “. Contacted by AFP, the social network has so far not reacted.
According to the agency, the social network refuses to enter into discussion on the rights related to copyright, which allow newspapers, magazines, and press agencies to obtain remuneration when their content is reused on the Internet by large companies. digital platforms.
Neighboring rights were extended to these platforms in 2019 by a European directive. After a long legal battle, several French and European media, including AFP, obtained from 2021 and 2022 remuneration for the use of their content from Google, the amounts of which have remained confidential.
AFP is not the first organization to summon Twitter in summary proceedings. On July 11, three French press groups (The world, Le Figaro And Les Echos-Le Parisien) have announced that they are launching the same procedure for similar reasons. These groups had said at the time that they regretted “that Twitter France and Twitter International Unlimited Company have, unlike their counterparts, never agreed to negotiate with them” on the issue of neighboring rights “and this despite several months of steps and then reminders that remained unsuccessful”.
On the AFP side, discussions with Facebook are also underway, while negotiations with the other platforms (LinkedIn, TikTok) have been entrusted to the Society for Neighboring Press Rights, a collective management body responsible for to collect and distribute the sums obtained among its members.