French newspaper publishers are suing X (formerly Twitter), accusing the Musk media platform of using their content without payment.

News brands Le Monde, Le Figaro, Les Echos, Le Parisien, Télérama, Courrier International, Le Huffington Post, Malesherbes Publications and Le Nouvel Obs are joined in the “neighbouring rights” action by news agency AFP.

Earlier this year, the media companies had been granted an emergency injunction, the tribunal giving X two months to provide commercial data so they could assess the income it earns from their content. Failing compliance, “demonstrating its continued intent to avoid its legal obligations”, the publishers were following up with the current action.
‘Neighbouring rights’ come from an EEC directive, supported in French law, and are due when social media platforms republish news content.

In March, France’s competition authority fined Google 250 million Euros (A$406.5 million) for breaching an agreement on paying for content reuse.

Pictured: Elon Musk makes the front page of Le Monde’s English edition