Justice bans Meta from using journalistic content without authorization

A São Paulo court has issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit brought by Brazil’s national associations for newspapers, broadcasters, and magazine publishers against Meta. The order suspends parts of Meta’s revised commercial terms, scheduled to take effect on November 20. Those terms would have allowed automated systems to access, copy, store, and analyze news organizations’ articles, photographs, videos, and other material published on their own websites - not just content shared on Meta platforms - including material protected by copyright. The court bars Meta from collecting or using participating publishers’ content without permission, including for developing or training artificial-intelligence systems.

The injunction also requires Meta to keep the publishers’ accounts, pages, and tools operating normally and forbids the company from blocking, restricting, or penalizing them for rejecting the new terms. Violations could incur a daily fine of 1 million reais, capped at 100 million reais. The judge cited indications of copyright violations and contractual abuse, emphasizing that commercial exploitation of protected works requires authorization. The order remains in force until a final ruling. The associations argue that the terms exploit Meta’s economic power and threaten publishers’ intellectual property and the financial viability of professional journalism. They describe the ruling as the first known decision of its kind worldwide in favor of a coalition of media associations; a Norwegian court had separately paused similar terms after a lawsuit by media groups.