Court: 'Scraping' websites for commercial purposes infringes on publishers' rights

Even if short snippets of news articles are used for commercial purposes, it constitutes an infringement of publishers' rights. That was ruled by the Amsterdam Court of Appeal on October 20, 2026, in an appeal filed by DPG Media and Mediahuis against HowardsHome.

The Court established that HowardsHome infringed upon copyright and press publishers' rights. HowardsHome undermined the publishers' business model by unlawfully collecting articles and photos and subsequently commercially exploiting them.

HowardsHome was a Dutch company that provided media monitoring services to dozens of major clients, including the Dutch Central Government. Every day, tens of thousands of articles were 'scraped' from news websites and resold to clients in the form of 'press alerts'. Each alert contained a fragment of an article, often with small images. HowardsHome operated without permission from the publishers and did not pay for the use of the articles.

After several unsuccessful attempts to reach licensing agreements, DPG Media (publisher of AD, de Volkskrant, and NU.nl, among others) and Mediahuis (including De Telegraaf and NRC) initiated legal proceedings in 2023. The publishers argued that HowardsHome's commercial service infringed on their copyrights and press publishers' rights, among other things. The Court has now ruled in favor of the publishers.

According to the ruling, HowardsHome cannot invoke any statutory exception, including the one for text and data mining. For its use of articles, HowardsHome required permission from the publishers, who were willing to provide a license in exchange for payment. The Court acknowledges that such licenses form an essential part of the publishers' business model, alongside subscription and advertising sales.

The Court of Appeal also ruled that HowardsHome wrongly claimed that using short snippets of articles is permissible. The very fact that money was made from those fragments means that there is an infringement of the publishers' rights. HowardsHome was held liable for damages suffered by the publishers and must provide an accounting of the unlawful use of online news content under penalty of a periodic penalty payment. It was also ordered to pay the legal costs.

Incidentally, HowardsHome ceased all its operations in 2024, shortly before the district court's ruling. Nevertheless, the ruling is of great significance because many other companies — including AI companies — believe they are permitted to scrape and use publishers' news content based on the same arguments.