The Competition Authority estimated, Wednesday July 8, that the American giant Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, is causing “serious harm” to the French press and “reinforces (its) precariousness” by not remunerating it for the use of its content, as provided for by the neighboring rights mechanism.
Meta’s practices may constitute “an abuse of a dominant position”, judges the Authority, which orders the American giant to “negotiate in good faith” with newspapers and press agencies to remunerate them, it said in a press release.
The Competition Authority was contacted in 2025 by two collective organizations which bring together hundreds of French media, Apig (Alliance de la presse d’information général) and DVP (Rights neighboring the press). Apig represents nearly 300 national and local daily newspapers. DVP, for its part, has the mission of collecting and distributing related rights between its members, who number more than 300 and represent 850 publications and press agencies (including AFP).
“No more remuneration for neighboring rights”
The dispute between these collective press organizations and Meta concerns the non-renewal of agreements at the end of 2024 for DVP and the beginning of 2025 for Apig. Since the expiration of these agreements, “the members of Apig and DVP therefore no longer receive remuneration from Meta in respect of related rights”, underlines the Authority. According to her, this “causes them financial damage, while their press content is still broadcast on Meta services”.
“Meta’s practices are likely to reinforce the precarious situation of a large number of publishers and press agencies, because they are deprived of resources essential to the sustainability of their activities and the maintenance of the quality of information,” insists the Competition Authority. It therefore orders the American giant to “negotiate in good faith with publishers and press agencies according to transparent criteria”. This negotiation must “cover the period of resumption of press content since the beginning of 2025”. In addition, the Authority requires that Meta communicate “within 15 days the information useful to the parties to successfully complete the negotiations”.
Rights related to copyright were established for digital platforms by a 2019 European directive. They allow newspapers, magazines or press agencies to be remunerated when their content is reused by digital giants.
