Facebook to pay French publishers for news content

Facebook said on Thursday it had signed a preliminary copyright agreement with a French news publishers’ lobby group, paving the way for it to pay for news content on its platforms in France.

The accord takes the form of a “term sheet” of a few pages, a source close to the matter said, and follows months of talks with Alliance de la presse d’information generale (APIG), a lobby representing leading dailies such as Le Monde, Le Figaro and Les Echos.

The preliminary deal lists the main principles of the accord and the copyright fees due to each of its members, the same source said. The “term sheet” will soon be followed by a framework agreement that will allow APIG’s members to sign individual licences with Facebook, the source said.

There will be two types of licences, the source said: one for the use of news content on Facebook’s main platform and one for its upcoming Facebook News service, which will curate stories from a select set of publications.

Facebook News will be launched in France in 2022, the US company said.

The social media group provided no detail about the content of the agreement. It has already signed a licence with Le Monde over the use of the newspaper’s content, the head of Le Monde group Louis Dreyfus said

The licensing deal is the result of a wider push by authorities in Europe and elsewhere to force Facebook and other social media companies to compensate publishers for content.