French publishers are accusing Elon Musk of introducing new features on X, formerly Twitter, to avoid paying for copyrighted content, as reported on the 22nd of August on Fortune, writes Politico.
Reportedly, Musk has confirmed that X will remove headlines and text from shared news stories, saying that “aesthetics” is the only reason.
In France, press publishers see this as an effort to evade neighbouring rights.
The EU copyright directive enables press to seek payment for online platform content. Stricter Canadian rules demand compensation from Meta and Google, fuelling conflict with US tech giants. In France, media firms reached agreements with Google and Meta after negotiations, but not with Twitter.
Twitter, pre- and post-acquisition by the world’s wealthiest man, asserts exclusion from EU copyright reform. However, prominent publishers Agence France-Presse and Le Monde sued Twitter this summer for copyright violation.
Following this, Elon Musk criticized neighbouring rights, opposing payment for traffic that benefits news sites.
Musk’s recent action to remove headlines and text aligns with his stance, avoiding potential copyright regulations, as noted by Emmanuel Parody from content providers lobby GESTE.
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