Boycotting ancillary copyright: French fine for X

Due to non-compliance with a court order, the microblogging service X must pay 170,000 Euros to the press agency Agence France-Press (AFP) in France. This is because, contrary to previous court decisions, X has not disclosed data regarding the use of AFP content. Additionally, according to the decision of the Tribunal de Paris on Thursday, there are 60,000 Euros in legal costs.

This is reported by the daily newspaper Le Monde. The background is that the operating company xAI is attempting to boycott the European ancillary copyright law. Not only does it refuse to negotiate with publishers, but it also ignores court rulings. In a second proceeding, the court is intervening more strictly: if usage data is not provided by February 10th at the latest, a fine of 60,000 Euros is threatened. Per day.

The ancillary copyright law requires large digital platforms that exploit third-party press content for their benefit to pay publishers for their content. In principle, the parties involved are to negotiate appropriate contracts. However, xAI is already refusing to enter into negotiations.

Ruling and appellate instance ignored

Therefore, AFP is pursuing legal action. Initially, the goal is to determine the extent to which AFP content is used on X and how much revenue X generates from it. The remuneration depends on this. In May 2024, the court ruled that X must disclose certain data within two months, including the number of impressions and clicks on tweets with AFP content, the number of other interactions (retweets, quotes, replies, and “likes”), and the advertising revenue generated in France in connection with these tweets.

The online service appealed against this but lost. The appellate court confirmed the requirements in September. Nevertheless, X has not complied. Therefore, the Tribunal de Paris has now imposed the penalty. Through its “attitude (…) X endangers the democratic goal of preserving a free and diverse press,” Le Monde quotes the court.

How much money AFP is entitled to for the ancillary copyright itself is a second question. The penalty will not be offset against this.

30,000 Euros per day

The Groupe Le Monde, owner of the daily newspaper, as well as competitor Le Figaro, are also taking legal action against xAI's boycott of ancillary copyright. The same Paris court has now ordered xAI to deliver the usage data by February 10th at the latest.

Should xAI fail to disclose the data by the deadline, a fine of 30,000 Euros per publisher and day is threatened. The Groupe Le Monde is pursuing the proceedings not only for the newspaper of the same name but also for the publisher's other press products; it holds, among other things, 51 percent of the French version of the Huffington Post. Competitor newspapers Les Echos and Le Parisien, however, abandoned their legal efforts to enforce their ancillary copyright against X last spring.

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