“Parasitic” AI-powered news piracy site finally blocked in France

It took years, but a coalition of 40 media outlets in France finally managed to obtain a blocking order and slam the brakes on the operations of an automated AI-powered news platform.

Naturally, the publishers were unhappy that the platform, titled news.dayfr.com, was digesting, rewriting, and republishing their content with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). Thousands of pirated articles were being published each day.

Days before the application was filed at the Court of Paris (Tribunal de Paris) in February, articles appeared in French publications denouncing news.dayfr.com and its negative effects.

The plaintiffs then demanded that the leading internet service providers (ISPs) in France – Bouygues Telecom, Free, Sfr, Sfr Fibre, and Orange – join a hearing. The goal was to obtain an order forcing the ISPs to block news.dayfr.com.

Three months later, even though the ISPs weren’t exactly cooperative and kept asking the court to confirm that the publishers had the right to act, the blocking order was finally issued.

“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,” the May 7th decision reads.

The ISPs have been ordered to prevent access to the site from French territory within 15 days. The ban should last for a period of 18 months.

However, there are quite a few issues. News.dayfr.com is already attempting to circumvent blocking – as noted by TorrentFreak, all articles listed in the publishers’ application have been taken down, and a new subdomain, euro.dayfr.com, has appeared.

Even more importantly, the site uses Mubashir, a content management system that is used on many other sites.

A joint investigation by Liberation and Next recently revealed that at least 1,000 similar sites churn out infringing content in more or less the same way, so the possibility that the blocked website would soon be replaced is indeed very real.