The platform failed to provide the commercial data on time "Agence France-Presse" and several newspapers filed a lawsuit against "X

A French court on Thursday issued a ruling obliging the platform X, owned by Elon Musk, to pay €170,000 (approximately $198,000) to the French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP), after the platform failed to provide the required commercial data on time to assess the revenue generated from using the agency's content.

The court also imposed a daily fine of €30,000 (around $35,000) on several French newspapers, including Le Figaro and Le Monde, if they fail in the future to submit the requested data, according to a separate ruling.

This dispute falls under neighboring rights to copyright, which were expanded in 2019 to include digital platforms under a European directive, granting newspapers and news agencies the right to receive compensation when their content is reused by major companies such as Google and Facebook.

AFP and several newspapers filed a lawsuit against X in 2023, accusing the platform of refusing to negotiate access to the required data. In May 2024, the Paris District Court ordered the platform to provide the media with the necessary information, including view counts, click-through rates, average engagement, and ad revenue linked to French content, within a two-month period.

However, X provided only a limited portion of the data and appealed the ruling. The Paris Court of Appeal rejected the appeal on September 25. As a result, on Thursday, the court decided to impose the compensation and fine, in addition to €60,000 (around $70,000) to cover legal costs, noting that the platform's stance "undermines the democratic principle of press freedom and media plurality."

Fabrice Fries, Chairman of AFP, welcomed the ruling, describing it as "a step toward ensuring fair compensation for news agencies and publishers from digital platforms and penalizing the delay tactics used by X."

The ruling also included a similar daily fine for Le Monde and Le Figaro, amounting to €30,000 per newspaper per day for a full year, starting from February 10.