Elon Musk's AFP Sues Elon Musk's Platform X For Copyright Violations

Agence France-Presse (AFP) filed a lawsuit in Paris against social media platform X (photo: twitter @afpfr)

Ajice France-Presse (AFP) announced on Wednesday August 2 that it had filed a lawsuit in Paris against Elon Musk's social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. They accused X of failing to discuss potential payments for the agency's news content distribution.

In 2019, France imposed copyright rules known as "related rights" requiring large online platforms to open talks with publishers seeking replacement for news.

"In a statement, Agence France-Presse expressed concern over their clear rejection of Twitter (which has just changed brands to 'X') to engage in talks on the application of related rights to the press," the news agency said.

Elon Musk himself criticized AFP's move in a post on social media X. "This is strange. They want us to pay them for the traffic to their site where they earn ad revenue and we don't get it!" he said. While X did not respond to a request for comment.

In 2021, France's competition supervisory agency imposed a fine of 500 million euros (Rp. 8.2 trillion) on Google, which is Alphabet's subsidiary for non-compliance in conducting talks with news publishers in the country.

Since then, Google has committed to resolving the dispute and has announced deals with AFP and several other leading news organizations in France. Meta Platforms, which is Facebook's parent company, has also signed an agreement with several news publishers of FRANCE.