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Your Facebook post is copyrightable: the CJEU has just confirmed it

ByCabinet Lazuli

On 8 September 2021, a Romanian schoolteacher published a twenty-two-line text on her Facebook page, entitled “A short guide for parents at the start of the school year”. The message was simple: she did not wish to receive gifts. Six days later, an online daily reproduced the text in full in an article, without asking her anything. Her name and a link to her page were added only after the fact.

She brought proceedings before the Bucharest court, then the court of appeal. Both dismissed her claim: a social-media post, they held, was not a work. The Romanian High Court of Cassation, for its part, hesitated and referred the matter to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The answer came on 3 September 20261. It is of interest to everyone who writes online, and to everyone who copies them.

A social-media post can be a work protected by copyright

The Court first recalls what a work is within the meaning of EU law. Two conditions, unchanged since the Infopaq, Levola Hengelo and Cofemel judgments2: the subject matter must be original, that is to say, it must constitute the author’s own intellectual creation, and that creation must be expressed in a subject matter identifiable with sufficient precision and objectivity. A twenty-two-line text satisfies the second condition without difficulty. That leaves the first.

On that point, the Court is clear: the length of the text, the fact that it was published online and its possible belonging to a predetermined literary genre are “irrelevant”3. The Berne Convention, with which the Union must comply, protects “every production in the literary, scientific and artistic domain, whatever may be the mode or form of its expression”, including “other writings”. An opinion post about social practices considered inappropriate falls within that category, provided that it reflects its author’s personality through free and creative choices.

The national court must ascertain whether, in drafting the text, the author was able to make free and creative choices in “the choice, arrangement and combination of words”4. The Court adds, subject to the assessment of the Romanian court, that on the file before it the teacher did indeed make such choices5.

What this means for you

It is common to discover that a social-media post, a practical fact sheet, a thread of several messages or a newsletter has been copied word for word, sometimes by a competitor, sometimes by a media outlet, sometimes by an agency running a third party’s account. The first question is always the same: “is it protected?”. The CJEU’s answer is clear. Yes, the work is protected as soon as the text bears your personal stamp. Neither its brevity nor its medium rules that out.

Under French law, there is nothing new on this point, but a useful confirmation. The Intellectual Property Code protects “all works of the mind, whatever their kind, form of expression, merit or purpose”6. The right arises from the mere fact of creation, without registration or formality7. And any reproduction in whole or in part without the author’s consent is unlawful8.

The limit lies in the text’s actual originality. Raw information (“the court handed down its decision on 2 September”), a commonplace turn of phrase, a list of facts or a text dictated by technical constraints will not be protected. The Court says so itself: elements dictated by rules, technical considerations or constraints that leave no room for creative freedom cannot give rise to any originality9. Between the two, the grey area is wide, and it is for the national court to assess the matter in concreto.

Can the press reproduce your publication?

That, of course, is what we would wish for you.

It is, in any event, the second question referred to the Court, and the most interesting one in practice. The 2001 Directive allows Member States to provide for an exception to copyright for “reporting current events”, to the extent justified by the informatory purpose pursued and provided that the source and the author’s name are indicated10.

First clarification: how the school system operates at the start of the school year may constitute a current event. To report means to provide information about an event that is of interest to the public at the time it is being discussed, without it being necessary to provide a detailed analysis or to invite readers to react11. The media outlet could therefore, in principle, rely on the exception.

Second clarification: the exception does not cover reproduction in full. Romanian law limits the borrowing to “short extracts”. The Court holds that limitation to be consistent with the Directive, because the exercise of the freedom of information “does not require, in all cases, the publication of works in their entirety”12. It goes further: save where a text is so short that no extract could be taken from it, reproducing a work in full prejudices its normal exploitation, because it “substitutes itself for its original communication, thereby dispensing recipients from having recourse to the latter”13. In other words, copying your post in full deprives your publication of its audience.

Third clarification, which concerns publishers: Romanian law also prohibited the press from deriving any “direct or indirect commercial or economic advantage” from the borrowing. The Court strikes down that condition, which is absent from the Directive. Press bodies inform the public, but they also carry on an economic activity necessary to their operation; prohibiting them from any advantage would deprive the exception of its practical effect14.

And under French law?

French readers must be alert to one difference. For texts, the Intellectual Property Code contains no general exception for “reporting current events”. The immediate-information exception in Article L. 122-5, 9° covers only works of graphic, plastic or architectural art15. For a written work, the only exception concerns short quotation: “analyses and short quotations justified by the critical, polemical, educational, scientific or informatory character of the work in which they are incorporated”, provided that the author’s name and the source are clearly indicated16.

The practical consequence is straightforward. A media outlet, a competitor or a fellow professional may quote a few lines of your post, in quotation marks, with your name, in an article that has substance of its own. It may not reproduce it in full, even while naming you, even with a link to the original publication.

Four habits to adopt

If you publish, keep evidence of the origin of your texts: a dated screenshot of the original post and, where possible, an export of your publications. If you are copied, react quickly and in writing, requesting the removal of the full-text borrowing or its reduction to a quotation with name and source. If you wish to quote, quote briefly, in quotation marks, with the author’s name and the source, in a text that adds something beyond the quotation. If you run a client’s or an employer’s account, check that the content reused has been authorised.

The CJEU’s judgment does not turn every post into a work. It does not relieve the author of showing that the text is original, which means explaining the choices made. And it leaves it to the national courts to draw, text by text, the line between quotation and substitution.

LAZULI assists content creators, businesses and agencies in protecting their writings and online publications: building evidence, cease-and-desist letters and takedown requests, negotiation and, where necessary, infringement proceedings. The firm also acts in defence, where a borrowing is challenged, and advises media outlets and agencies on the conditions of lawful quotation.

Jérémie LEROY-RINGUET, September 2026

  1. CJEU, 2nd Chamber, 3 September 2026, CY v Gândul Media Network SRL and HO, C-598/24, ECLI:EU:C:2026:682 ↩︎
  2. CJEU, 16 July 2009, Infopaq International, C-5/08, ECLI:EU:C:2009:465; CJEU, 13 November 2018, Levola Hengelo, C-310/17, ECLI:EU:C:2018:899; CJEU, 12 September 2019, Cofemel, C-683/17, ECLI:EU:C:2019:721; judgment in C-598/24, paragraphs 19 to 21 ↩︎
  3. Judgment in C-598/24, paragraph 25 ↩︎
  4. Judgment in C-598/24, paragraph 26 ↩︎
  5. Judgment in C-598/24, paragraph 27 ↩︎
  6. Article L. 112-1 of the Intellectual Property Code ↩︎
  7. Article L. 111-1 of the Intellectual Property Code ↩︎
  8. Article L. 122-4 of the Intellectual Property Code ↩︎
  9. Judgment in C-598/24, paragraph 25, referring to the Cofemel judgment, paragraph 31 ↩︎
  10. Article 5(3)(c) of Directive 2001/29/EC of 22 May 2001 ↩︎
  11. Judgment in C-598/24, paragraphs 36 to 38; CJEU, 29 July 2019, Spiegel Online, C-516/17, ECLI:EU:C:2019:625, paragraphs 66 and 67 ↩︎
  12. Judgment in C-598/24, paragraphs 52 and 54 ↩︎
  13. Judgment in C-598/24, paragraph 53 ↩︎
  14. Judgment in C-598/24, paragraphs 55 to 57 ↩︎
  15. Article L. 122-5, 9° of the Intellectual Property Code ↩︎
  16. Article L. 122-5, 3°, a) of the Intellectual Property Code ↩︎

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