Spanish press to reclaim intellectual property rights on the Web

Posted by Soraya Kishtwari on June 8, 2009 at 10:53 AM

Fresh on the heels of a successful legal battle in which 55 Spanish editors denounced a press-cutting service for using articles without the express consent of the authors, the Spanish press has decided to launch another judicial fight, this time to reclaim work used by news aggregators.

May's ruling featuring a company called Documentación de Medios confirmed that newspapers are the rightful and exclusive intellectual property owners of their own work, in effect, giving them complete control over what can and cannot be published by third parties.

"It is from this judicial basis that Spanish newspaper editors are preparing to shift the fight - to defend their intellectual property rights - to the Internet," said AEDE's director general Ignacio Benito.

The move follows concerns voiced by the European Newspaper Publishers' Association (ENPA), which last month issued a statement warning that news aggregators should act lawfully, fairly and respectfully by asking newspapers' for their approval before using content.

According to El Mundo, Benito is confident that Spanish and European law is on the side of the editors: "We will persevere so that our rights are firmly applied in all areas and across the media," he said.

Carlos Ulecia, assistant secretary-general of Grupo Prisa - one of the world's largest Spanish-language media companies and owner of El País newspaper - said the verdict represents a turning point for the Spanish press and he believes the opportunity to draw up the foundations of a new working partnership, between those who produce content and those who wish to use it, has finally arrived.

Speaking on behalf of the Spanish editors, Javier Cremades, a lawyer from Cremades & Calvo Sotelo insisted that "the aim is not to drive out companies dedicated to this line of business out of the market," but to force them to comply according to, and with, the backing of the law.

Google News is arguably the world's largest news aggregator. Speaking at the Google I/O Developer Conference in San Francisco last month, Google co-founder Sergey Brin outlined his intention to form and maintain amicable working relationships with newspapers and news agencies, reminding people that the company had paid $6 billion to content owners last year, alone.

Sources: AEDE , El Mundo.es , ABC.es