A transpartisan text carried by Laure Darcos and presented by Emmanuel Maurel, communist deputy, proposes establishing a “presumption of use” of cultural content by AI manufacturers. The goal is to help creative and media rights holders negotiate with OpenAI, Google, Meta, Anthropic or Mistral AI for remuneration in exchange for the massive use of their texts, photos, songs, films or articles, to train AI models.
By allowing 110 amendments to be tabled, most of them from the Ensemble pour la République group, chaired by Gabriel Attal, the government chose obstruction and reduced to nothing the chances of this text being discussed and adopted on time.
The bill presented by Laure Darcos is however composed of a single article and based on a simple principle of transparency and respect for the law. Its text was approved by the Council of State and adopted unanimously by the Senate. By seeking to block it, under the pretext of making France “the homeland of AI”, the Assembly is acting as the voice of the major American and Chinese platforms and is encouraging the continued pillaging of works defended by content publishers. Technological innovation cannot occur to the detriment of the fundamental rights of creators and cannot be built on the widespread and even encouraged theft of authors’ works. The intention behind this obstruction is to allow these all-powerful actors to knowingly plunder our works and conceal the evidence.
The SNE, with all cultural companies, creative industries and all rights holders’ societies, calls on political leaders to resist their lobbying. The government cannot give in to the blackmail of tech companies who prevent the national representation from discussing and adopting a law that complies with the law and protects French and European cultural interests.
