Asks Copyright Office to amend policies, documents regarding copyrightability of words and short phrases, study need to clarify laws around substantial takings,
systematic use of news content by aggregators

Arlington, VA – On January 5, the News Media Alliance submitted additional comments to the Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office, Shira Perlmutter, in response to a request for additional comments to assist it in the preparation of the “Publishers’ Protection Study.” The study, requested by Congress last year, will examine the state and effectiveness of current protections for publishers and whether additional protections are desirable and appropriate. The Alliance highlighted the urgency of the situation and the need for swift action to better protect news publishers in both its initial and additional comments.

In this round of comments, the Alliance built upon its original comments, filed on November 23, 2021, with additional recommendations for the Office’s consideration. In addition, the Alliance responded to comments submitted by other groups, as well comments provided during the Publishers’ Protections Study Roundtable, held by the Copyright Office on December 9 and in which the Alliance was represented on all three panels.

In rebutting comments from other groups alleging that the use of news content by online aggregators is fair use or not infringing, the Alliance comments state that such “substantially inaccurate statements… have the effect of obscuring the truth in an effort to circumvent long-established U.S. copyright jurisprudence, as well as case-by-case fair use analysis,” in addition to misrepresenting the nature and extent of the aggregators’ use of news content.

The Alliance also made four more recommendations – in addition to the recommendations made in its original comments – in order to further improve the sustainability of high-quality journalism, including: 1) amending the Copyright Office’s policies and documents regarding the copyrightability of “words and short phrases”; 2) clarifying the law around substantial takings and systematic use of news content; 3) studying the need for sui generis protections for news publishers; and 4) studying the need for further guidance or congressional action with regards to the use of news content for artificial intelligence applications.

Alliance Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Danielle Coffey, said, “While the Constitution is intended to protect creative works, quality journalism is not adequately compensated by aggregators under our current legal system. News publishers make massive investments in reporters and newsrooms, and they must have the ability to exercise their rights and receive a return on that investment, including through the ability of publishers to receive fair compensation for the use of their content online.”

In its initial comments, submitted in November, the Alliance suggested measures to rebalance the existing system to prevent further abuse of news publishers’ online content by the dominant tech platforms such as Google and Facebook.

In those comments, the Alliance asked the Copyright Office to 1) conclude that the reproduction and public display of news content by aggregators is infringing; 2) implement changes to registration practices that would help protect press publishers; 3) look to Article 15 of the European Union (EU) Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (the “DSM Directive”) to help ensure that American publishers benefit from and receive compensation for the consumption of their content in the EU, by adopting strong national treatment provisions in any bilateral agreements with the EU; and 4) endorse the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act of 2021 (JCPA), intended to help address the market abuse of dominant online platforms.

Coffey continued, “The current imbalance in the digital ecosystem caused by the dominant tech platforms poses an existential threat to high-quality journalism. We cannot afford to lose more of the local news publishers that we trust and rely on for critical information about news and events that impact our lives and communities. The Alliance commends Senator Tillis for his leadership in requesting this study, and the Copyright Office for undertaking this important work, and we look forward to working with the Copyright Office to offer insight and data to assist them in suggesting solutions to Congress to address the current problems facing the industry.”

Read the Alliance’s full comments here.

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Media Contact:
Lindsey Loving
Director, Communications
lindsey@newsmediaalliance.org

The News Media Alliance is a nonprofit organization representing more than 2,000 news organizations and their multiplatform businesses in the United States and globally. Alliance members include print, digital and mobile publishers of original news content. Headquartered near Washington, D.C., the association focuses on ensuring the future of news media through communication, research, advocacy and innovation. Information about the News Media Alliance (formerly NAA) can be found at www.newsmediaalliance.org.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Arlington, VA – The News Media Alliance and National Newspaper Association, both long-standing newspaper advocacy organizations with Washington, D.C., area offices, have created a joint policy group to assist their members in the newspaper industry with postal issues and public policy.

NNA, founded in 1885 as Newspaper Editorial Association, will take the lead on postal issues, an area of expertise for its entire history. News Media Alliance, whose legacy organization was founded in 1887, will advise NNA on digital publishing policies, on which it has sharpened its expertise since the breakup of the Bell telephone companies in the 1990s.

As part of the agreement, the National Newspaper Association Foundation will open its postal training tools to Alliance members and NNA will assist in case-specific postal problems through its Postal Hotline.

The Alliance will continue to factor in the concerns of community newspapers in its advocacy on important industry issues like the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, and the two groups will form an consultative task force to help the industry to speak with one voice on other critical issues, such as journalism and First Amendment advocacy. The Alliance manages the media industry’s News Media for Open Government coalition, which includes organizations that lobby for government transparency. NNA is a founding member of NMOG.

The agreement’s member-benefits offerings will take effect in January 2022, and will feature training for newspapers and publishers in the use of Periodicals mail. Growing numbers of newspaper publishers are turning to mail delivery for distribution. Advocacy consultation has already begun.

NNA Chair Brett Wesner and Alliance Executive Vice President & General Counsel Danielle Coffey said they saw this agreement as a powerful combination to create efficiency in newspaper industry advocacy and training.

“These are the two organizations that have been the voices for newspapers in Washington for more than a century, NNA representing the smaller newspapers and NMA the larger ones,” Wesner, president of Wesner Publications, Cordell, Oklahoma, said. “The demands and expenses of doing this work have accelerated in recent years and we see that this trajectory is going to continue. It seemed to both of us that we could do a better job if we eliminate duplication and amplify our voices wherever possible.”

“The News Media Alliance is pleased to partner with NNA to help amplify our voice on key shared issues of importance to our members,” Coffey said. “We look forward to collaborating with NNA to help drive important public policy results that will benefit local news publishers, as well as equip our members with resources and training to help navigate the changing postal landscape.”

While NNA and NMA will handle the public policy side, the NNA Foundation’s role will be the third leg of this innovative partnership, bringing a broad educational piece to the table.

“NNA Foundation has been accelerating its newspaper training programs all year,” NNA Foundation President Matt Adelman, publisher of the Douglas (Wyoming) Budget, said. “We have periodic webinars on all sorts of subjects. This agreement will become part of our new Max Heath Postal Institute, whose mission is to make newspapers and printers better users of the mail. NMA’s members will be eligible to join us for this training. We look forward to working together.”

The faculty for the joint training endeavors will be the Washington office and headquarters personnel for NNA and NMA, including Danielle Coffey, News Media Alliance executive vice president and general counsel; Lynne Lance, NNA executive director; Tonda Rush, NNA General Counsel; and Matthew Paxton, publisher of the News-Gazette, Lexington, Virginia, and Bradley Hill, president of Interlink Inc., a postal software company.

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The News Media Alliance is a nonprofit organization representing more than 2,000 news organizations and their multiplatform businesses in the United States and globally. Alliance members include print, digital and mobile publishers of original news content. Headquartered near Washington, D.C., the association focuses on ensuring the future of news media through communication, research, advocacy and innovation. Information about the News Media Alliance (formerly NAA) can be found at www.newsmediaalliance.org.

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Copyright Office should allow creators to register website content, provide protection against tech platforms exploiting news publisher content

Arlington, VA – The News Media Alliance submitted comments to the Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office, Shira Perlmutter, in response to the U.S. Copyright Office’s notice and request for public input to assist it in the preparation of the “Publishers’ Protection Study,” requested by Congress in order to provide a detailed examination of the online problems confronting press publishers, including the nature, scope and severity of the crisis facing the news publishing industry from the unlicensed uses of their online content, and its impact on the continued viability of news publishers to provide the public with important news and information in order to sustain a strong democracy.

In its comments, the Alliance highlights the need for key updates to the existing system to prevent further abuse of news publishers’ online content by the dominant tech platforms such as Google and Facebook.

Facebook and Google currently do not consistently or adequately compensate news publishers for use of their original content. They make millions of dollars off of that content, while also exerting anticompetitive dominance over the digital advertising ecosystem, which news publishers rely on to be able to continue investing in producing high-quality journalism.

According to Pew Research Center, news publisher advertising revenues fell from approximately $50 billion to an estimated $8.8 billion between 2005 and 2020, a reduction of over 80 percent.

The Alliance comments state that, “As the result of the unauthorized and uncompensated taking of headlines, reported and gathered factual data, and portions of news articles (including, for example, ledes) by these [dominant] platforms,” press publishers have lost advertising and subscription revenue which could be used to help fund news content. The platforms, meanwhile, argue that their use of news content is not copyright infringement under the Copyright Act.

Alliance Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Danielle Coffey, said, “Americans are consuming more news than ever, and yet we are facing a crisis in which news publishers across the country are being forced to close because they are not being compensated fairly for use of their original content. The Alliance thanks Senator Tillis for his leadership in requesting this study and commends the Copyright Office for this important undertaking that will highlight this crisis facing the news publishing industry, a critical copyright-based industry that has long benefited publishers, authors, and the news consuming public.”

In its comments, the Alliance recommends that in its study, the Copyright Office should offer “a menu of suggested viable solutions to allow Congress to make informed decisions about any necessary amendments to the Copyright Act, or other federal laws.”

In sum, the Alliance would respectfully ask the Copyright Office to: (1) conclude that the reproduction and public display of news content by aggregators is infringing; (2) implement changes to registration practices that would help protect press publishers; (3) look to Article 15 of the European Union (EU) Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (the “DSM Directive”) to help ensure that American publishers benefit from and receive compensation for the consumption of their content in the EU, by adopting strong national treatment provisions in any bilateral agreements with the EU; and (4) endorse the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act of 2021 (JCPA), intended to help address the market abuse of dominant online platforms.

The Alliance has been vocal in its support of an ancillary copyright and the ability for news publishers to register online content, such as through an ancillary copyright similar to that established in Europe in 2019. The adoption of an ancillary copyright in the United States would help balance the relationship between news publishers and the dominant online platforms and help news publishers get fair compensation for the use of their protected content online.

Earlier this year, Australia passed legislation to require the online platforms to compensate news publishers for the use of their content.

Coffey continued, “Americans cannot afford to lose more of the local news publishers they have come rely on and trust for critical information about news and events around the country and the world, as well as in their backyards, that impact their daily lives. The time to act is now. We must ensure the continued viability of high-quality journalism, which is the solution to combating harmful misinformation, fake news, and hate speech perpetuated via the social media platforms. We look forward to working with the Copyright Office to offer insight and data to assist them in suggesting solutions to Congress to address the current problems facing the industry.”

Read the Alliance’s full comments here.

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Media Contact:
Lindsey Loving
Director, Communications
lindsey@newsmediaalliance.org

The News Media Alliance is a nonprofit organization representing more than 2,000 news organizations and their multiplatform businesses in the United States and globally. Alliance members include print, digital and mobile publishers of original news content. Headquartered near Washington, D.C., the association focuses on ensuring the future of news media through communication, research, advocacy and innovation. Information about the News Media Alliance (formerly NAA) can be found at www.newsmediaalliance.org.

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