Paris (AFP)
Former centrist MEP and president of Radio France, Jean-Marie Cavada, will chair the collective management body (OGC) intended to negotiate neighboring rights of the press with the digital giants, professional organizations announced Thursday at the origin of the project, supported by Sacem.
Founding member of the IDFRights institute, which defends fundamental rights in digital technology, Jean-Marie Cavada was chosen by the Syndicate of Magazine Press Editors (SEPM), the National Federation of the Specialized Information Press (FNPS) and the Independent Online Information Press Union (Spiil) to chair their future OGC, according to a joint statement.
The SEPM announced at the beginning of June that it wanted to create the very first body responsible for collectively managing the collection and distribution of sums from neighboring rights, relying on the expertise of Sacem (Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers) in matters of internet rights.
He was joined in the wake by the FNPS and the Spiil.
Neighboring law, which obliges digital platforms to pay publishers and press agencies for the use of their content, was created by a European directive in 2019, ardently defended by Jean-Marie Cavada in the European Parliament.
France was the first EU country to transpose it, but press editors are struggling to enforce it.
In mid-July, the Competition Authority thus imposed a fine of 500 million euros on Google, reproaching it in particular for not having negotiated "in good faith" with the publishers.
In this context, the gathering of rights holders within a collective body should make it possible to "attenuate the extraordinary asymmetry of the balance of power" with the Gafam (Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft) ", according to its instigators .
An initiative that interests AFP, according to its CEO, Fabrice Fries, quoted in the press release.
AFP "will examine with interest, once its agreement with Google (on neighboring rights) has been finalized, the option of joining this OGC in the context of future negotiations with other platforms," he said.
The constitutive General Assembly of the body, whose board of directors "will be designed to welcome the diversity of press families holding neighboring rights", is scheduled for September 15, according to the press release.
More broadly, the OGC also aims to "contribute to the establishment" of neighboring law "at European level, by initiating contacts with the other players" concerned.
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