![\"news-small\"](\"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/news-small.jpg\")
On February 11, 2025, a coalition of forty media outlets took legal action in France hoping to slam the brakes on mass piracy of thousands of articles published each day.<\/p>\nOn February 11, 2025, a coalition of forty media outlets took legal action in France hoping to slam the brakes on mass piracy of thousands of articles published each day.<\/p>\n
Under the umbrella groups La D\u00e9p\u00eache du Midi, La Montagne, Sud Ouest, Le T\u00e9l\u00e9gramme, Publihebdos, and La Nouvelle R\u00e9publique du Centre, and together the \u201cAlliance\u201d, the publishers hoped to derail \u201cparasitic\u201d news platform, news.dayfr.com. <\/p>\n
In operation since 2021, the apparently automated platform allegedly harvests the media companies\u2019 articles. With assistance from AI, it then republishes plagiarized or obvious copies of the articles on its own portal. A regurgitation rate of between 5 and 15 articles every minute, means up to 6,000 articles are republished every day.<\/p>\n
Days before the application was filed at the Court of Paris (Tribunal de Paris), articles appeared in French publications denouncing news.dayfr.com and its negative effects. <\/p>\n
In an article published by Next, Jean-Marc Manach<\/a> recalled holding a training session on fact-checking for a group of professional journalists. During that session, one participant apologized for taking a few moments to quickly complete and publish an article of their own.<\/p>\n \u201cTo illustrate why and how it was important to learn how to identify news articles and sites generated by AI (GenAI), I took the homepage of news.dayfr.com as an example,\u201d Manach explained. \u201cI had already identified it as the main GenAI plagiarist in French. But I didn\u2019t expect the journalist to discover, stunned, that this site had just published a copy-paste of his article, posted online only half an hour earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n A joint investigation by Lib\u00e9ration and Next revealed that at least 1,000 similar sites churn out infringing content in much the same way. In some cases, AI \u2018hallucinations\u2019 aren\u2019t noticed by site operators or the public, resulting in bogus automated news being taken as fact, then cited as source material<\/a> for articles published on Wikipedia. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n Articles reporting on the pirate news sites were reproduced by those very same sites, some with only minor cosmetic changes, as the example above shows. Other published articles were little more than elaborate fiction, yet still ended up on Google News due to the use of domains previously used by reputable resources. <\/p>\n In a process that began on February 11, the plaintiffs summoned the leading ISPs in France \u2013 Bouygues T\u00e9l\u00e9com, Free, Sfr, Sfr Fibre and Orange \u2013 to appear at a hearing on March 2025 before the Court of Paris. The aim was to obtain an order compelling the ISPs to block news.dayfr.com, to prevent customers from accessing plagiarized content.<\/p>\n The decision handed down by the Paris Court dated May 7 reveals that the ISPs \u2013 which currently block sites under a voluntary arrangement with the audiovisual industries \u2013 stopped short of offering their full cooperation.<\/p>\n ISP \u2018Free\u2019 sought assurances from the court that the requested measures respect the principle of proportionality and that blocking measures \u201cwould only be taken with respect to the domain name\/address https:\/\/news.dayfr.com\u201d and would only be in force for a maximum of 12 months. <\/p>\n Orange said it did not oppose the measures but asked the Court to confirm that the publishers had the right to act and that blocking measures would only target the sole domain identified in the application. Sfr and Sfr Fibre questioned whether the requested measures were proportionate and \u201cstrictly necessary\u201d.<\/p>\n Blocking orders of this type can only be authorized by the judicial authority, after infringement of copyright or related rights has been established. The decision refers to reports drawn up by a judicial commissioner in December 2024, which found that many articles owned by various publishers had appeared on news.dayfr.com. Any changes made to the original works were swiftly dismissed as irrelevant.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is clear from all of these findings that the Alliance and the publishing companies have established with sufficient proof that the disputed site allows Internet users to access protected works without the authorization of the rights holders, notwithstanding the slight modifications made to the articles reproduced on the disputed site. The infringement of copyright and related rights has been established,\u201d the decision reads.<\/p>\n The decision notes that the publishing companies are entitled to request measures to protect their rights, especially when considering obstacles that prevent the site\u2019s operator being identified, such as hosting at Cloudflare.<\/p>\n \u201cThese elements demonstrate the knowledge of the entirely or almost entirely illicit nature of the links present on the disputed site by the people who contribute to this dissemination and the difficulty for the authors and producers to prosecute those responsible for this site,\u201d the Court continues.<\/p>\n Having weighed the need for blocking measures against the risk of blocking legal content, the rights of the ISPs to conduct their business, and the infringing nature of the content in question, the Court ruled in favor of the publishers.<\/p>\n [The Court] orders the companies Orange, Sfr, Sfr fibre, Free and Bouygues t\u00e9l\u00e9com to implement or have implemented, at the latest within 15 days following the service of this judgment and for a period of 18 months from the implementation of the measures ordered, all measures likely to prevent access to the site Orange, Sfr, Sfr fibre, Free and Bouygues telecom are responsible for any costs incurred when implementing the blocking and in the event that the measures face circumvention, the Court will consider submissions.<\/p>\n The question now is whether news.dayfr.com will attempt to circumvent blocking. Two changes are clear already; all articles listed in the publisher\u2019s application have been taken down, and a new subdomain (euro.dayfr.com) is available. Unfortunately, a more significant issue may need to be addressed.<\/p>\n Look closely enough and the site\u2019s \u2018secret sauce\u2019 becomes evident; it uses a content management system (Mubashier) ostensibly run from the Middle East, that\u2019s also in use on many other sites. That raises the real possibility that successfully blocking dayfr.com would give rise to replacements using the same system.<\/p>\n Finally, in common with similar preconfigured platforms, Mubashier-powered sites may be expected to \u2018just work\u2019 right out of the box, without customers having to put in too much effort. <\/p>\n That seems to be a pretty good fit when considering the intended purpose of dayfr.com; automatically grab content and then publish it with minor tweaks, if any. Masquerading as a genuine news site only serves as a distraction for other things going on in the background, including dubious SEO schemes.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Among many pages hidden from search engines are URLs that reveal a bit more about how the sites obtain content, and a few other things which may be a little more exposed than intended. <\/p>\n Efforts by some to offload malware seemed particularly rude, especially after spending considerable energy <\/a>claiming to be ethical news sites. Of course, Cloudflare may offer some protection, but clusters of sites hosted in Germany, and right under the publishers\u2019 noses in France, may not always have the type of cover they expected.<\/p>\n The Tribunal de Paris blocking order is available here (pdf<\/a>, French)<\/em><\/p>\n From: TF<\/a>, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.<\/p>\n![\"next-ai\"](\"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/next-ai.png\")
<\/center><\/p>\n![\"plagiarism-1\"](\"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/plagiarism-1.png\")
<\/center><\/p>\nCourt of Paris Considers Request for Blocking<\/h2>\n
Site Previously Assessed by Judicial Commissioner<\/h2>\n
Blocking Order Granted<\/h2>\n
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Dayfr.com may be considered a key threat to French publishers, but there\u2019s nothing particularly unique about the site. <\/p>\n![\"newsfrcom\"](\"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/newsfrcom.png\")
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