Information society services providers

Draft law to strengthen the effectiveness of the related rights for press publishers and agencies

The purpose of the draft law is to strengthen the effectiveness of related rights for press publishers and agencies, as enshrined in Article 15 of Directive (EU) 2019/790 of 17 April 2019. To that end, it draws upon the judgement of the Court of Justice of the European Union, of 12 May 2026 (Case 797/23), which established the possibility for Member States to provide for public intervention measures concerning negotiations for the granting of usage licences between publishers/agencies and online public communication services.

To rebalance the power dynamic between the parties, the draft law draws on the Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority (Arcom), to which it assigns two new main missions.
Firstly, the power to monitor transparency: if an online public communication service fails to provide the information necessary to assess compensation within thirty days, Arcom can be contacted, issue a formal notice to the service, and then impose a penalty of up to 1% of the service's global revenue. Secondly, the power to arbitrate: if no agreement is reached on the amount of compensation within three months, Arcom can be contacted and set the compensation, either by accepting one of the parties’ proposals or by determining it itself. Following Arcom’s intervention, an appeal is possible before the Paris Court of Appeal.