The ILP Lab has published a report to inform national policy makers in EU Member States about the need to take account of the position of journalists when implementing the press publishers right set out in Article 15 of the EU Directive on Copyright in the DSM. Student-researchers from the ILP Lab propose measures to ensure that journalists receive an appropriate share of the press publishers’ revenues and to guarantee that journalistic freedom and media pluralism are safeguarded.
Specifically, the report recommends that national governments implementing the press publishers right (i) ensure that the law explicitly sets out a transparency obligation in relation to the revenues that this right brings to publishers, and (ii) examine the possibilities for collective rights management to ensure that an appropriate share of revenues of the press publishers right will flow to journalists. Furthermore, to safeguard media pluralism, it urges national governments to (iii) explicitly exclude websites or social media pages of freelance journalists from the definition of “press publications” and (iv) explicitly state that the right to quotation fully applies to the press publishers right.
The report was written by Hannah van Kolfschooten, Lisa Pennings and Julia van der Veen, in partnership with the Nederlandse Vereniging voor Journalisten (NVJ). It has been submitted to the public consultation that the Dutch government launched in advance of the national implementation of the EU Directive on Copyright in the DSM. The report has also been presented to the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) who can use it to convince policy makers in other EU Member States to take care of the position of journalists when implementing the press publishers right. You can download the report here.