Norway’s main media organisations said Tuesday they had taken legal action to block Meta from enforcing new user terms which they claim threaten their rights to their journalistic content.
“The fear is that the companies will use this power to secure rights over journalistic content,” the head of the Norwegian Media Businesses’ Association (MBL), Lene Eltvik Vindfeld, said in a statement.
“Meta uses media groups’ investments to develop artificial intelligence services that compete with them directly. This is both unacceptable and distorts competition,” she added. The plaintiffs include public broadcaster NRK, media groups Schibsted, Amedia, Polaris and Aller, as well as Norwegian news agency NTB.
Meta’s new terms of use would apply to all professional account holders — media outlets as well as companies and retailers — and would leave them no option to oppose them other than to delete their accounts, according to the plaintiffs. They said they had filed a request with the Oslo district court for a provisional injunction against the entry into force of the terms of use, pending a ruling on the substance of the case. Contacted by AFP, Meta said it had delayed the implementation of the new user terms until November 20 “to allow more time for us to explain to our partners and stakeholders what’s changing and what’s not”.
