Research On The Liability Of News Aggregation

The news aggregator is a new kind of online services, which sends the lastest newsand articles to its users automatically by “crawling” the news feeds from various newssites and blogs. News aggregation service has become popular among online usersdue to its convenience, meanwhile been repelled by traditional news publishers. Newspublishers seek remedies against the systematic crawling and exploitation of theirnews products, thereby protect their investments in the news products and the benefitstherefrom. The seventh amendment of German Copyright Law reflects the strongdemand of news publishers and grant them with exclusive neighboring rights, evenwhen the contents aggregated are uncopyrightable news on current affairs. ItalianCopyright Act includes similar regulations. Under the frame of Chinese intellectualproperty legislation, what features and liabilities do news aggregators hold? As theproviders of news on current affairs, news publishers’ benefits have been exposed tothe strong impact of news aggregation service. Which remedies should newspublishers adopt? This article begins with the phenomenon of and legal conflictscaused by news aggregation, analyses the legal nature and liability thereof, andproposes suggestions on the current legal protection of news publishers in China andthe protection methods.This article is divided into three chapters. The first chapter focuses on the act ofnews aggregation and the legal disputes thereof. Part1elaborates the subject, object and pattern of news aggregation. Part2introduces the possible relevant legaldisputes.As complex products, news products consist of copyrightable materials andnews on current affairs. The exploitation of different objects might involve differenteconomic rights and lead to different liabilities for news aggregators. Newsaggregators usually present the outcome by showing the original title with a hyperlinkwhich refers to the original webpage and an abstract which is often the first sentence(s)or paragraph of the news (articles). Google News and Google Reader are typical newsaggregations. Since news aggregation involves the aggregation of copyrightable anduncopyrightable materials (mainly the news on current affairs), and thecopyrightability of a particular product is critical to the liability of news aggregators,the chapter2and chapter3will discuss this topic based on the latest legislation andcases abroad.The chapter2concentrates on the liability of aggregating copyrightable materials.For this part, hyperlinks might involve right of communication through informationnetwork, the abstract might relate to the right of reproduction. But news aggregationis not an inevitable infringement, the liability thereof should be determined based onthe individual cases and copyrights. However, contrast to the belief of newspublishers, news aggregation would not violate copyrights or amount to unfaircompetition acts under most circumstances. The hyperlink contained in the title wouldnot constitute the act of communication through information network, while whetherthe abstract would fall into the scope of the right of reproduction depends on the casesand fair use doctrine.The chapter3provides an analysis on the liability of aggregating uncopyrightablenews on current affairs. On the one hand, the ancillary copyright for news publishersis a new copyright with wide disputes. On the other hand, it is still open to discussionwhether a direct competition exists between news aggregators and news publishers.However, it is justified to protect publishers’ investments in news products, since thelack of protection for the investments would impose a negative influence on publishers’ incentives to gather news. Also it should be noted that, over-protection fornews publishers would hinder the circulation of news, harm public interests and eventhe freedom of speeches. So it is recommended to be cautious to determine theprotection scope for news publishers.On the basis of the previous chapters, chapter4compares the advantages anddisadvantages of different legal measures taken by news publishers and their legal andsocial effects. Thereafter an optimal solution to the conflicts between news publishersand aggregators is present for the reference to the future legislation and legal practices.It is enforceable to regulate the systematic access to the news products with theancillary right for news publishers and competition law.This dissertation relates to the newest update of domestic and foreign legalpractices and introduces the pattern of news aggregation. Through the comparisonbetween the liabilities of news aggregators under different circumstances and thepro-and-cons of all protection methods, this dissertation attempts to find the mostpracticable legislation to ensure the protection for the investments of news publishersand the development of new business models of news aggregators.