The Impact of EU Copyright Law on News
7 Pages Posted: 12 Feb 2020
Date Written: June 1, 2018
Abstract
Since the nineteenth century, the role of press publishers and news agencies has been an undiscussed beacon in the spreading of news reports across the continents. Their success is mostly due to the savvy exploitation and constant development of telecommunication technologies, which have remarkably changed the modus operandi of all actors involved in the news industry. Two disruptive moments can be taken as reference points in the history of news distribution: first, the invention of the telegraph in early nineteenth century enabled the transmission of news reports from every corner of the world to editorial offices in charge of publication in local journals; second, the online news publication via the Internet significantly lowered distribution costs, allowing the release of more content, more swiftly, to a broader audience.
The number of legal questions related to the creation and circulation of news content has increased along with the advancement of the latest technologies. Many of the juridical issues at stake lie at the very core of copyright law as they pivot on the requirements and scope for protection of created content: are news reports products of the human intellect or rather facts, hence products of reality? Does copyright effectively remunerate and incentivize the work of both the author and the publisher?
Keywords: EU copyright law, journalism, news aggregation, CDSM Directive
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