Court rules: scraping websites for commercial purposes infringes copyright and press publishers' rights
Amsterdam, 26 October 2026 - Even when only short excerpts of news articles are used for commercial purposes, such use constitutes an infringement of news publishers' rights. This was confirmed by the Amsterdam Court of Appeal on 20 October 2026 in an appeal brought by Mediahuis and DPG Media against HowardsHome.
According to the Court, HowardsHome unlawfully collected and commercially exploited articles and photographs from news websites on a large scale. In doing so, the Dutch media monitoring service undermined the publishers' business model.
HowardsHome, which has since ceased operations, provided media monitoring services to dozens of major organisations, including the Rijksoverheid (the Dutch central government). Every day, tens of thousands of online news articles were scraped without permission and commercially offered to clients in the form of media monitoring reports. Each report contained an excerpt from an article, often accompanied by small images.
After several attempts to reach licensing agreements, DPG Media (publisher of, among others, AD, de Volkskrant and NU.nl) and Mediahuis (publisher of, among others, De Telegraaf and NRC) initiated legal proceedings in 2023. The publishers argued that HowardsHome's commercial service infringed, among other rights, their copyright and press publishers' rights. The Court has now ruled in favour of the publishers.
According to the judgment, HowardsHome cannot rely on any statutory exception, including the exception for text and data mining. The use of this news content required the publishers' permission. The Court recognises that licensing revenues of this kind form an essential part of publishers' business models, alongside subscription and advertising revenues.
The Court of Appeal also rejected HowardsHome's argument that the use of short extracts from articles is permissible. It ruled that, precisely because financial gain was derived from those extracts, their use constituted an infringement of the publishers' rights.
HowardsHome has been held liable for the publishers' damages and, under penalty payments, must provide insight into its unlawful use of online news content. The company has also been ordered to pay the legal costs.
Although HowardsHome ceased its activities in 2024, the judgment is highly significant for the wider media industry. The ruling confirms that companies may not collect and commercially exploit publishers' news content without permission. It is therefore also relevant to other parties, including AI companies, that claim to be entitled to scrape and use publishers' news content on the basis of similar arguments.
