Denmark has intervened on Belgium’s side in the Streamz case, asking the EU’s highest court to preserve national rules requiring digital platforms to remunerate publishers, authors and performers for content used online.
Denmark has joined a major EU court dispute over whether national governments can require large digital platforms and streaming services to pay publishers, authors and performers under the bloc’s copyright rules.
The intervention supports Belgium in Case C-663/24, Streamz and Others, heard by the Court of Justice of the European Union on 6 and 7 July. Google, Meta, Spotify, Sony, Streamz and other companies are challenging provisions of Belgium’s implementation of the EU Digital Single Market copyright directive.
The Court’s summary of the case says the Belgian Constitutional Court has asked whether the measures are compatible with EU copyright law, the freedom to provide services and the freedom to conduct a business.
A national law with EU-wide consequences
The dispute centres partly on Article 15 of the copyright directive, which created rights for press publishers when online services use their publications. Belgium added mechanisms concerning remuneration for publishers, authors and performers.
The platforms argue that parts of the national law impose obligations that go beyond what EU legislation permits. Belgium’s supporters say an interpretation that is too narrow would hollow out rights that were intended to rebalance bargaining power between content creators and technology companies.
Denmark’s Culture Ministry said it had submitted written observations and joined the oral hearing in support of Belgium. In its statement announcing the intervention, the ministry warned that a platform victory could dilute publishers’ rights under the directive.
The Danish position is blunt: technology companies should pay when journalistic articles and images are used to support their platforms. That political argument now has to be translated into the narrower legal question of what the directive authorises member states to require.
The economics of news distribution
Publishers depend on digital platforms for audience reach but argue that the same platforms capture advertising, data and subscription value generated around professional content. Platforms respond that links and snippets direct traffic to publishers and that open information exchange would be harmed by excessive payment obligations.
The conflict has become more urgent as artificial intelligence systems ingest and summarise published material. Although Streamz concerns the copyright framework for platforms and streaming services, the judgment may shape how broadly courts understand national power to protect content markets in a rapidly changing technological environment.
The case also sits beside wider efforts to constrain platform power. EU Today previously examined the Commission’s move to require Google to share search data under the Digital Markets Act, another example of Brussels trying to turn broad digital rules into practical obligations for gatekeepers.
For smaller publishers, collective or statutory rights can offset weak bargaining power. For platforms operating across the single market, divergent national rules create compliance costs and legal uncertainty. The Court must therefore balance harmonised EU rules with the discretion left to national legislators.
What the Court may decide
The hearing does not produce an immediate judgment. The Court will consider the Belgian Constitutional Court’s questions and may receive an Advocate General’s opinion before ruling.
Its answer could validate much of Belgium’s approach, restrict specific remuneration mechanisms or set a narrower boundary between copyright protection and the freedom to provide services. Any outcome will affect other governments considering stronger implementation and publishers negotiating with platforms.
The case is also a test of the EU’s regulatory model. Brussels frequently presents copyright and digital-market rules as a means of constraining the dominance of large technology companies. Those rules are only effective, however, if they survive judicial scrutiny and can be enforced without fragmenting the single market.
Denmark’s intervention raises the political stakes because it shows the dispute is no longer only between several companies and Belgium. It is becoming a contest over how much practical value the EU’s publisher right should carry across Europe.
