The EU Copyright Directive’s Neighboring Rights for Press Publishers: A work in progress

Italy and Spain are latest in the line of European countries to adopt the European Union’s Directive on Copyright. The EU finalized the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market in 2019 with the objective of ensuring “fairer remuneration for creators and rightsholders, press publishers and journalists, in particular when their works are (re)used online.” The Copyright Directive has been the subject of much debate, with Article 17’s requirement of prior authorization for uploading copyright protected content responsible for the bulk of the controversy. However, another section of the Copyright Directive that has garnered substantial attention is Article 15, which creates “neighboring rights” for press publishers for the online use of their publications. According to the World Intellectual property Organization (WIPO), ‘neighboring rights’ or ‘related rights’ are ancillary to copyright, and essentially enable press publishers to exclusively authorize or prohibit the use, reproduction, indexing or aggregation of their content, while ensuring that the legal and financial interests of persons and entities that have contributed to making the work available to the public (such as the original author) remain protected.