Should Facebook pay newspapers? Fair compensation after the Meta–AGCOM Judgment

Compensation is not a tax: it arises from authorisation

Compensation can be understood only by starting from the underlying right. Article 15 grants publishers an exclusive and prior right: they may authorise or prohibit the reproduction and online making available of their publications by platforms.

Remuneration stems from this right. Member States may regulate “fair compensation” because the publisher may make authorisation conditional on payment of an amount considered appropriate. Payment is therefore not due merely because the news is available online: it is the price of a licence for a specific protected use.

The symmetry is simple, at least in theory. The publisher may prohibit the use, authorise it free of charge or license it for payment; the platform may request a licence or refrain from using the content. What Article 15 does not allow is a payment obligation that is independent both of actual use and of any intention to use the publication.

This is where the Court’s second condition comes into play. Duties to negotiate, provide information and refrain from unjustifiably reducing visibility make sense only if the platform uses or intends to use the publications and the publisher wishes to grant a paid authorisation. Outside those circumstances, such duties cannot become general obligations.

Links, individual words and very short extracts: what remains free

Sharing a link to an article is not the same as republishing it. Article 15 expressly excludes hyperlinks, individual words and very short extracts from the related right. These uses do not require the publisher’s authorisation under that provision.

The issue arises when Facebook goes beyond the link and creates a preview containing the headline, an image and parts of the text. At that point, the focus must be on what is actually reproduced: does the combination still fall within the exclusions, or does it amount to a reserved use?

Judgment C-797/23 does not set a universal threshold in characters, lines or percentages, nor does it decide when, in practice, an extract ceases to be “very short”. Recital 58 of the Directive does, however, state that the exclusion must not undermine the effectiveness of the publisher’s right. The possible substitutive effect of the preview is therefore a relevant factor in the assessment, not an automatic formula introduced by the Court.

Caution is also required in relation to photographs and other contributions incorporated into the article. The publisher’s related right does not prejudice the rights of authors and other rightholders. An image may therefore require a separate assessment: it does not become freely usable merely because it accompanies a link or because the textual extract is very short.

Before discussing price, the publisher and the platform must therefore identify the use: which publication, which elements, what form of display and for how long. The simple link remains free; what accompanies it may, depending on the circumstances, require authorisation.

Negotiations, data and visibility: platforms’ obligations

If the platform uses or intends to use protected content and the publisher requests a paid licence, the negotiations cannot take place in the dark. Italian law may require disclosure of the information needed to estimate the value of the use: advertising revenues, views and the way previews operate are often known only to the platform.

Article 43-bis and Resolution No. 3/23/CONS also provide that, during negotiations, neither party may unjustifiably restrict the visibility of the other party’s content in search results. The Court considers this kind of safeguard permissible if it is intended to prevent negotiating pressure and remains proportionate. It does not, however, recognise a general and permanent right of the publisher to be distributed by Facebook.

If no agreement is reached, AGCOM may intervene in determining the compensation. According to the Regional Administrative Court’s account cited by the Court of Justice, the Authority’s decision does not compel the parties to enter into the contract: the publisher may refuse to grant the licence and the platform may refrain from using the content. This point too will have to be verified by the national court in light of how the rules operate in practice.

The GEDI–Meta case makes the economic stakes visible. By Resolution No. 180/25/CONS of 10 July 2025, AGCOM determined the compensation payable by Meta to GEDI for Facebook’s use, in 2022, of the publishing group’s publications. In the public version, the final amount is redacted, while the 62% rate applied to the calculation basis identified by the Authority is visible. The measure predates the European judgment and is not an implementation of it; it nevertheless shows how decisive the data, the scope of use and the calculation method are.

What changes and what the Lazio Regional Administrative Court still has to decide

The Court did not unconditionally “approve” the Italian model. It held that EU law does not, in principle, preclude a fair-compensation system supported by negotiation and transparency obligations and safeguards concerning visibility, provided that those mechanisms remain linked to an existing or planned use and to a licence that the parties remain free not to conclude.

For publishers, a robust claim will have to document which content was used, in what form, for how long and with what potential economic value. It is not enough to say that news circulates on Facebook. For platforms, it is not enough to reply that links generate traffic for newspapers: they must distinguish links from reproductions and provide the necessary data when the conditions for negotiations are met.

The Lazio Regional Administrative Court must now determine whether Article 43-bis and the AGCOM regulation comply with the limits set by the Court, including as regards proportionality. The answer to the opening question therefore remains conditional. Facebook does not have to pay for a simple link or when it refrains from using the publications; it may have to negotiate and pay compensation if it uses protected journalistic content under a paid licence.

The distinction that matters, then, is not an abstract opposition between newspapers and platforms. It separates free linking from reserved use; above all, it separates the price of a licence from a payment imposed in the absence of use. Before discussing how much should be paid, it is necessary to establish what is being used and on what legal basis.