Copyright, Online News Publishing and Aggregators: a Law and Economics Analysis of the EU Reform

On 12 September 2018, the European Parliament approved the new version of the proposal for a Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market elaborated by the European Commission in 2016. In order to address problems in protecting content and improve the bargaining position of press publishers against information society service providers, the European Commission decided to intervene on rights, introducing an additional layer of copyright, namely a new neighbouring right that will cover reproduction and the making available to the public of press publications to the extent that digital uses are concerned. The proposed reform has produced a spate of comments and criticism, since it has for the most part been interpreted as unjustified, ineffective and damaging. In particular, the new right appears to be without economic or legal justification, since there is no evidence of a market failure which the legislation would need to solve. The article aims to scrutinize the world of online news and its business models, as well as the complex framework of the much-debated EU copyright reform and the overall effects of the introduction of the new right