This copyright reserved for the press, born of a European directive, had been litigated between the Alliance responsible for watching and Google.
Le Monde with AFP
Facebook concluded an agreement with part of the French daily press to pay it under the “Neighboring Rights” – a copyright reserved for the press, born of a European directive in March 2019 -, Announced, Thursday, October 21, the social network, a few weeks after advertising agreements of the same type with Le Monde and FIGARO.
This “license agreement” signed with the Alliance of the General Information Press (APIG), which represents the national and regional newspapers, “provides that Facebook obtains and remunerates licenses for neighboring rights”, according to The press release. “In addition, it will give the opportunity to the Alliance publishers who wish to participate in Facebook News,” a new service dedicated to information that must be launched in France in January 2022, said the social network.
“The terms we have reached will allow Facebook to apply the French directive and law, while generating significant funding for alliance publishers, including the smallest of them,” Félicit Pierre Louette, President of the APIG and President and CEO of the Group Les Echos-Le Parisien, cited in the press release.
Neither the amount of remuneration nor the method of calculation were disclosed.
Framework Agreement
Neighboring rights are explicitly provided for in a new European legislation adopted in 2019, immediately transposed to France. They pale the way for compensation for the authors of the press content extracted from articles, photos, videos, infographics … – presented on the results pages of the big platforms of the web. But these have long challenged their principle, and the negotiations with the press have been very laborious.
A framework agreement on the subject had been announced in January between the APIG and Google, but it must be reviewed to take into account a conviction in July of the engine of research by the competition authority. A fine of 500 million euros for failing to negotiate “good faith” with the press publishers. The authority asked the US giant to resume negotiations with publishers, to offer them a new compensation offer.
Groups Le Monde and Figaro have both announced less than a month ago separate agreements with Facebook, as they had done before with Google, for compensation and highlighting their contents.