Facebook agrees to compensate French newspapers for content

Facebook agreed to compensate French news publishers for content shared on the social media platform, the company announced Thursday. 

Facebook said the deal with Alliance de la presse d’Information générale, which represents papers across France, will allow users to “continue to freely share news within their communities, while ensuring the protections of neighboring rights of our publishing partners.”  

The company said it had been working with the Alliance since October 2019, when France introduced a copyright law known as “neighbouring rights” that aimed to allow publishers to be compensated for use of their content by tech giants. 

Pierre Louette, president of the Alliance, said he is “very happy to reach this agreement.” 

“The terms we have reached will allow Facebook to apply the directive and French law, while generating significant funding for Alliance publishers, especially the smallest of them. This first step in the concrete implementation of neighboring rights shows that solidarity between publishers is essential to effectively defend their interests,” Louette said in a statement. 

The announcement did not disclose details about the amount agreed to by Facebook and the Alliance in the deal. 

The deal will also allow publishers in the Alliance to appear in Facebook News, which will be launched in France in January.