“The Alliance is examining the data sent by Meta that is supposed to allow us to evaluate neighboring rights”

JDN. The Paris Court of Appeal rejected Meta's arguments on Thursday October 29 contesting the decision of the French Competition Authority to order it to negotiate in good faith with publishers. What do you expect from Meta now?

Pierre Petillault is director general of the General Information Press Alliance. © APIG

Pierre Petillault. The Alliance wants Meta to comply with the various injunctions issued by the Competition Authority, including the obligation to negotiate in good faith with publishers. The platform had already started to respond to the Authority's decision by sending us data intended to allow us to evaluate neighboring rights. We are currently reviewing this data.

Vianney Baudeu. Meta's appeal against the Competition Authority's injunctions being non-suspensive, the decision of the Court of Appeal is immediately applicable

Meta is indefinitely postponing the deployment of its new commercial conditions. Are you reassured?

P.P. Publishers around the world have sounded the alarm about the risks of these new conditions, which would give Meta an unlimited right to use their content for its artificial intelligence services. Meta was forced to backtrack.

V.B. Remember that the Norwegian justice system responded favorably to local publishers, who had activated summary proceedings against Meta's new general conditions because they were problematic from a competition law point of view. Meta now intends to launch a consultation before proposing new general conditions. There is therefore no longer any urgency to challenge them. We remain vigilant.

In an opinion made public on Tuesday, November 3 in a case between the Hungarian publisher Like Company and Google, the Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) considers that an LLM is authorized to use press publications for training. What is your reaction to this review?

Vianney Baudeu is responsible for the legal and institutional affairs division of the general information press. © APIG

V.B. This opinion asserts that TDM (text and data mining, editor's note) is applicable for training generative AI, but this is an interpretation that the Alliance formally contests. Remember that this is the opinion of the Advocate General, not the judgment of the case. Furthermore, in view of the various judicial decisions for cases between AI and rights holders, particularly in the EU, this opinion is isolated.

P.P. We have already seen quite questionable positions adopted in previous cases, sometimes against the will of the legislator, including concerning Meta. The opinions of the advocate general have not always been followed by the judges.

Machine-translated from French