Research On Copyright Liability Of News Aggregation Service

With the progress of technology and the advent of an era of information explosion, news aggregation service emerged to help people obtain available information in a short time. However, a new service mode is always accompanied by the corresponding legal issues, so we need to cope with the technology with legal principle.News aggregation service is a new way to deliver news, which uses the computer program to gather news. Toutiao.com is a typical representative of this service. It gains a great success, as it helps people gain a great amount of news quickly. However, there followed numerous legal disputes and infringement litigation from traditional media.Based on the service mode from Toutiao.com, This article analyzes legal disputes of the news aggregation service mode. Although the service mode of Toutiao.com is involved in many legal issues, the dispute focuses on three issues: firstly, does using deep links to gather news infringe copyright? Secondly, does format conversion infringe copyright? At last, does copying title and abstract of the news infringe copyright? In fact, deep linking problem and format conversion problem attach to the same act, so there will be overlap part of the analysis.In the analysis of the deep link issue, this paper analyzes whether the behavior of deep linking infringe the right of reproduction and information network transmission right. And then the article focuses on the analysis of the understanding of "provide the work to the public”. According to the analysis of the "Server Standard" and "user-aware standard", it concludes that it should determine the infringement problem from the aim of copyright law, and the article concludes that deep linking infringe information network transmission right directly.In the analysis of format conversion issue, the paper analyzes the key problem of the format conversion is the temporary reproduction. For temporary reproduction issue, we believe that it is not an individual behavior; it should be included in the act of information network transmission. And it should be regulated by information network transmission right, not by the right of reproduction. Deep linking problem and format conversion problem attach to the same act, so it infringes information network transmission right directly.In the analysis of title and abstract mode, the paper argues that the short title is difficult to be protected by copyright, and copying the first paragraph is a substantial copy of the news, so it is not a fair use according to the analysis of the four elements of fair use.