The French National Assembly passes a law to strengthen the ancillary copyright rights of news publishers

On March 26, 2026, the French National Assembly (Assemblée nationale) passed a law intended to strengthen the effectiveness of neighboring rights (“droits voisins”) for press publishers and news agencies. The legislation is part of the EU Directive 2019/790 on copyright in the Digital Single Market, which was implemented in France in 2019.

👉 As a reminder: Related rights entitle press publishers to compensation when their content is used by major online platforms (e.g., search engines or social networks). The goal is to correct a structural imbalance: To date, the economic value generated by digital content has often benefited platforms more than producers.

⚖️ In practice, however, enforcing these rights has proven difficult. Negotiations with platforms were often protracted, opaque, and marked by a significant power imbalance. In particular, limited access to usage data made it difficult to secure appropriate compensation.

🚀 The new law aims to address this and make the rights more effectively enforceable. In particular, it provides for:

• increased transparency requirements for platforms;

• stricter regulation of negotiations;

• a central role for the French regulatory authority Arcom, which can intervene in disputes and impose sanctions.

🧾 In addition, greater participation by journalists and creators is envisaged: A minimum share of revenue from neighboring rights must be passed on to them in the future—in accordance with the fundamental principles of copyright law.

📰 For news publishers, this is an important step: On the one hand, it involves additional revenue streams in the digital environment; on the other, it strengthens their negotiating position vis-à-vis dominant platforms—against the backdrop of an economically strained media market.

🤖 Nevertheless, key questions remain unanswered:

• How effective are sanctions against globally operating platforms?

• Can smaller publishers actually benefit from the system?

• And how will the regulatory framework affect the use of content by AI systems?

Image: ChatGPT

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