Can Newspapers Publish Photographs In News Stories For Free Without The Consent Of The Rights Holder?

• Published date: 29 November 2021
• Subject Matter: Intellectual Property, Copyright
• Law Firm: Advokatfirmaet Schjodt AS
• Author: Mr Halvard Helle and Jenny Nondal

In 2020, the newspaper VG published several news stories criticizing the law firm Rogstad. To illustrate the news stories, VG published photographs from Rogstad's webpage and the Facebook page of one of Rogstad's employees. In April 2020, Rogstad sued VG and claimed compensation for breach of the copyrights to the photographs. In the case of TOSLO-2020-64392, the district court decided in favor of VG. Rogstad appealed the judgment, and in case LB-2020-164203, the appellate court assessed whether VG could publish the photographs without the consent of Rogstad (and its employee) and without paying any compensation to Rogstad (and its employee).

Norwegian version (PDF).

Reproduction of copyrighted works and photographs requires, as a general rule, consent from the rights holder as set out in the Norwegian Copyright Act Sections 3 and 23. However, there are several exceptions from...