A delegation of the Fieg was today audited at the joint commissions ‘Culture, science and education’ and ‘Transport, post and telecommunications’ of the Chamber of Deputies, on the draft legislative decree for the implementation of the “Copyright directive”, approved in preliminary examination by the Council of Ministers of 5 August last.
With specific reference to the provision that introduces a related right in favor of newspaper publishers on the online uses of their editorial content by content sharing platforms and media monitoring and press reviews companies, a note reads that Fieg has expressed appreciation for the general structure of the transposition legislation and in particular for the “assisted negotiation” mechanism between the parties, aimed at guaranteeing the effectiveness of the exercise of the right recognized by the European directive, which delegates to the individual Member States precisely the task of concretely ensuring its application.
With regard to the notion of very short extracts, another crucial point of the new discipline, it was noted that the experience of other Member States has already brought to attention conduct potentially harmful to the rights of newspaper publishers; it is therefore necessary that the aforementioned notion be identified in such a way as not to prejudice the free circulation of information or the effectiveness of the rights provided for by the directive, in the belief that if the use of the very short extract has a substitute function for publication or in any case exempts the reader from referring to it represents a clear violation of related law.
With regard to the definition of compensation for journalists, Fieg continues, it was observed that the transposition of European directives must take place taking into account the regulatory and contractual contexts of each legal system: in ours, the rights of use are already recognized to publishing companies. economic for the work performed by employed journalists and in the contract there is a specific discipline for the transfer to third parties of the articles. It was therefore proposed to clarify that the provision relating to the definition of remuneration for journalists should apply exclusively to self-employed journalists.
Finally, with regard to Agcom’s adoption of the regulation that will identify the parameters for determining fair remuneration, the publishers associated with Fieg have asked to provide for the involvement of interested parties, in the form of consultation or similar form of participation.