The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has rejected Meta’s appeal against the decision of Italy’s communications regulator AGCOM (Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni), which requires online platforms to pay publishers for the use of excerpts from their articles. The judgment, filed Tuesday in Luxembourg, sets a significant precedent in the standoff between the news industry and the tech giants over the use of journalistic content — a dispute that has now extended to the training of artificial intelligence models, with companies like OpenAI and Anthropic facing similar copyright proceedings.
The Luxembourg judges clarified that «a right to fair compensation for publishers is compatible with Union law, provided that such remuneration constitutes the consideration for authorizing the online use of their publications.» Italy’s authority to regulate the matter, in line with the European directive on copyright in the digital single market, is thus recognized.
Why Meta will have to pay Italian publishers
The dispute began when Meta filed a challenge before Italy’s TAR (the regional administrative tribunal) against the AGCOM ruling that set out the criteria for determining the fair compensation owed to publishers, and the mechanism to enforce it. According to the company led by Mark Zuckerberg, both the regulator’s measure and the underlying Italian law were incompatible with the EU copyright directive and with the freedom to conduct a business protected by the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The Italian administrative court referred the question to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling. The Court endorsed the Italian framework: the right to compensation is legitimate, provided publishers retain the option to authorize the use of their content for free or to refuse it altogether. The obligations imposed on platforms — to enter good-faith negotiations and to make available the data needed to calculate compensation — were also deemed justified.
Reactions from FIEG, AGCOM and Meta
The Italian Publishers Federation (FIEG) expressed «great satisfaction» that the Court recognized the compatibility of Italy’s rules with European law, and said it hopes «the principles affirmed by the Court will now find full and concrete application.» The European Publishers Council (EPC), through its executive director Angela Mills Wade, called the ruling a decisive step toward «fairer negotiations with the gatekeepers who have abused their dominant position by refusing to negotiate in good faith,» noting that quality journalism depends on publishers’ ability to recoup the investments needed to produce reliable news.
AGCOM commissioners Laura Aria and Antonello Giacomelli also expressed «strong satisfaction» with a judgment that, they note, recognizes the regulator’s prerogatives. Even more emphatic was commissioner Massimiliano Capitanio: «The ruling is epochal. It reaffirms that journalistic work must be paid for, while leaving the parties free to negotiate the price.»
Meta, while taking note of the decision, emphasized the narrow perimeter the Court actually drew, through a company spokesperson:
«We welcome the confirmation by the Court of Justice of the European Union that Article 15 constitutes an exclusive right and that it does not provide for any payment by providers when they do not use journalistic publications. We will fully examine the decision and cooperate constructively when the matter returns before the Italian courts.»
The open front on artificial intelligence
The ruling comes as AGCOM has already shifted its attention to a new battleground with Big Tech. The regulator has sent the European Commission a request for evaluation of Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode services, suspected of possibly violating the Digital Services Act. The initiative stems from a complaint by FIEG, according to which AI-based search functions have caused a noticeable reduction in the visibility and findability of publishers’ content online.
The underlying issue, on a broader scale, is the same one addressed by Tuesday’s ruling: those who produce quality information must be able to monetize their work even when it is repurposed by tech platforms in reworked form — whether as a news snippet, a search-result summary, or training data for a large language model.
Editor’s note
This article was originally published in Italian on money.it by P. F. on May 13, 2026 as «Meta perde la battaglia legale contro gli editori italiani. Ora dovrà risarcirli». It has been translated and adapted for an international audience by the Money.it International desk.
