The Danish government has formally stepped into a high-stakes legal battle at the European Court of Justice, filing a written intervention in a case that could determine whether major tech companies must pay for news content they host on their platforms, the country’s Culture Ministry announced Monday.
The lawsuit was originally brought in 2023 by Streamz, Google, Meta, Spotify, and Sony against the Belgian government. The tech companies argue that Belgium’s way of implementing Article 15 of the Digital Single Market Directive — a European Union rule governing press publishers’ rights — conflicts with broader EU law.
Denmark has chosen to side with Belgium in the dispute, which is commonly referred to as the Streamz case. The Danish government is also taking part in the oral hearing scheduled for July 6 and 7.
At the heart of Denmark’s position is the push to hold tech giants financially accountable when newspaper articles or other media content appear on their platforms. Danish officials argue that if the court rules in favor of the tech companies, it could significantly weaken the rights that news publishers currently hold under the Digital Single Market Directive.
At the oral hearing, Denmark plans to urge the court to clearly spell out the boundaries of press publishers’ rights and the obligations tech companies have to compensate publishers when their content is displayed on those platforms.
Denmark’s Culture Minister Zenia Stampe was direct in her criticism of the tech industry’s approach to media content. “In the end, it hits the Danish media hard and damages our democracy,” Stampe said, emphasizing that tech giants should not be permitted to profit from media content without providing payment to those who created it.
This is not Denmark’s first foray into European copyright disputes involving technology companies. The country has also taken part in a separate landmark European copyright case examining whether Google’s use of press releases to train artificial intelligence systems is legally permissible.
