Meta ordered to compensate Italian publishers after landmark court ruling in Italy

Meta suffered a major legal loss on Tuesday after Europe’s highest court, Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), upheld an Italian regulatory order obliging the tech giant to compensate publishers.

According to the court ruling, Meta must pay for the snippets of news articles displayed across its platforms, siding with the Italian telecoms watchdog (AGCOM).

The recent court battle centers on the ongoing copyright dispute between the creators and publishers and tech companies. The publishers and authors have accused that these tech companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta use the original work and published article for AI training purposes, leading to violation of artistic integrity.

"The Court finds that a right to fair ​compensation for publishers is consistent with ​EU law, provided that that

remuneration constitutes consideration for authorising ‌their ⁠publications to be used online," the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) said.

The legal dispute stemmed from Meta’s arguments over the authority of AGCOM to determine the compensation rates these platforms must pay for featuring news articles.

Meta contested that these Italian national regulations conflict with the existing rights established for publishers under EU copyright law.

It is important to get the definitive interpretation of these overarching European rules. For this purpose, an Italian court referred the case to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling.

According to Meta company spokesperson, “We will review the decision in full and engage constructively as ⁠the ​matter returns to the Italian ​courts.” 

The case titled C-797/23 is expected to influence similar ongoing disputes across Europe and could set a precedent for how tech companies are required to pay for news "snippets" or content used in AI training.