European UnionDirective (EU) 2019/790 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market (DSM Directive), Articles 15 and 4
In force since , under challenge in court.
A press publishers' right rule binding public and private bodies.
- Criminal exposure
- No
- Private right of action
- No
- Instrument type
- a directive or treaty
- Categories
- Linking framing, TDM opt-out
- Obligation class
- Attribution, TDM
- Court action
A suit challenging this law is pending. No court has blocked it. Premium data
What it requires
- This Directive is addressed to the Member States (Art. 32), which had to bring into force the measures necessary to comply with it by (Art. 29(1)), so an app meets these rules through national implementing laws.
- If you are an information society service provider that reuses press publications online, such as a news aggregator or media monitoring service, expect to need a licence from the press publisher for uses within the reproduction and making-available rights that Art. 15(1) gives it, which are the rights in Art. 2 and Art. 3(2) of Directive 2001/29/EC.
- You need no press publisher's authorisation for acts of hyperlinking, for the use of individual words or very short extracts of a press publication, or for private or non-commercial uses by individual users (Art. 15(1)); the Directive does not define very short extracts, and recital 58 says the exclusion is to be interpreted so as not to affect the effectiveness of the rights.
- Before text and data mining works under the Art. 4 exception (for purposes beyond scientific research), confirm that you access them lawfully and that the rightholder has not expressly reserved the use in an appropriate manner, such as machine-readable means for content made publicly available online (Art. 4(1) and (3)); where no exception applies, an authorisation from the rightholder is required (recital 8).
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text. Also read by: Case C-797/23 Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd v Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni, judgment of (Grand Chamber) (recorded ).
In the frameworks
- NIST AI RMF
- MAP 4.1Approaches for mapping AI technology and legal risks of its components – including the use of third-party data or software – are in place, followed, and documented, as are risks of infringement of a third party’s intellectual property or other rights.
- NIST AI 600-1
- GAI-RISK-10Intellectual Property
- GAI-RISK-12Value Chain and Component Integration
- MIT mitigations Draft
- FINOS AIGF
- AIR-PREV-007Legal and Contractual Frameworks for AI Systems
- AIR-DET-013Providing Citations and Source Traceability for AI-Generated Information
- ETSI EN 304 223
- 5.2.4-2.1Minimum record for training data: its source, such as a page URL, and when it was collected.
Our reading of where this law's duties sit in each framework. It never says that running a control meets the law. How we read a framework against the law
Identifiers refer to ETSI EN 304 223 V2.1.1 (2025-12), © ETSI 2025, all rights reserved. ETSI owns the standard; no ETSI text (titles or sentences) is reproduced here. The standard is free to download from ETSI.
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
Press publishers as rightholders, through the damages and injunction actions each Member State must make available (Directive 2001/29/EC, Article 8(2), applied by Directive (EU) 2019/790, Article 15(3)); Member States provide and apply the sanctions (Directive 2001/29/EC, Article 8(1)).
Settledness
Case C-250/25 (Like Company v Google Ireland), a reference from the Budapest Környéki Törvényszék lodged on , asks whether Article 15(1) of this Directive, read with Article 3(2) of Directive 2001/29/EC, makes the display of press content in the responses of an LLM-based chatbot a communication to the public. The Court of Justice lists the case as pending.
- As of
- Case link
- https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:62023CJ0797
- Case citation
- Case C-797/23 Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd v Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni, judgment of (Grand Chamber)
- Under challenge
- Yes
- Open questions
- Does a headline with a snippet of a given length fall within 'individual words or very short extracts of a press publication' in Article 15(1), when the Directive sets no length?
- Does the training of an LLM-based chatbot on press publications, or the display of their content in its responses, count as 'online use of their press publications by information society service providers' under Article 15(1), the questions referred in Case C-250/25?
Also on the record
EEA status
- Status
- Pending
- Joint committee decision number
- 333/2023
- Source link
- https://www.efta.int/eea-lex/32019l0790
- Decision date
What this law does
Article 15 requires Member States to give publishers of press publications established in a Member State the rights provided for in Article 2 and Article 3(2) of Directive 2001/29/EC, the reproduction and making-available rights, for the online use of their press publications by information society service providers.
Those rights do not apply to acts of hyperlinking, to the use of individual words or very short extracts of a press publication, or to private or non-commercial uses by individual users; the Directive does not define very short extracts, and recital 58 says the exclusion is to be interpreted so as not to affect the effectiveness of the rights.
Article 4 requires Member States to provide an exception or limitation for text and data mining of lawfully accessible works for purposes beyond scientific research (Art. 3), on condition that the use has not been expressly reserved by the rightholders in an appropriate manner, such as machine-readable means in the case of content made publicly available online. The Directive entered into force on , and Member States had to bring their implementing measures into force by .
How courts have read itPremium data
Our analysis of this law draws on 1 court ruling.
What each ruling held, what it means for an app, and whether it still stands are premium data, in the Plus, Pro and Enterprise plans.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app reuses other publishers' content.
Back to the example · Lint your app
Page updated .