Norwegian Media Companies Prevail in Court Against Meta

This means that Meta is prohibited from implementing the changes to its commercial terms until the legality of those changes has been finally determined by the courts.

-We are very pleased with this decision. This is extremely important for Norwegian media," says Lene Eltvik Vindfeld, Chair of the Board of the Norwegian Media Businesses' Association (MBL). "We are satisfied that the court has agreed with us that Meta holds a dominant position in the relevant market and that the new terms are unreasonable. We are also pleased that the court recognizes that the alternative is that media companies risk losing control over editorial content built up over many years,"says Vindfeld.

This sends a clear signal to Meta, and we hope they reconsider.

-We cannot accept that Meta dictates the terms governing the public’s access to content. The concern is that the company will use this power to secure rights to journalistic content. The result is that Meta uses the media companies’ investments to build AI services that compete directly with them. This is both unacceptable and anti-competitive, says Vindfeld.

The case arises from the fact that NRK, TV 2, Schibsted, Amedia, Polaris, Aller, DN, Mentor Medier, NTB, and Hordaland Folkeblad this week asked the Oslo District Court to halt Meta’s new terms pending a court's assessment of whether they are lawful.

For Norwegian editor-controlled media, this would have meant that every article, every image, and every video, including content behind paywalls, could be scraped. There is no option to refuse. The only alternative is to delete the account and lose contact with Norwegian Facebook and Instagram users.

Affects Everyone
This is about people’s access to credible and critical journalism. When the financial foundations of independent news media are weakened, media plurality and the democratic public sphere are put at risk.

-But this really affects everyone. The terms impact every Norwegian business with a Facebook or Instagram page, from large corporations to the local newspaper or the corner shop that shares content on Facebook. Media companies are taking the lead because we have the most to lose and the resources to take on this fight, says Vindfeld.