News aggregation and copyright in the UK: The case for the defence

摘要

A "battle royale"1 is currently being fought in the UK between news aggregator Meltwater News and the major UK newspapers, in the guise of the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA). While not the first such battle in Europe, the Meltwater v NLA dispute is particularly important because it raises some fundamental questions about the proper scope of copyright in the digital age and, in particular, about what permissions are required for end users to use internet search engines and to browse the internet. A recent decision of the English High Court in the case indicates that (in the UK at least), end users require rightsholder permission to use search engines and browse websites unless the end user's activities fall within one of the relatively narrow exceptions to infringement in UK copyright law. Furthermore, the decision also indicates that the common practice of sending links to articles published online may infringe copyright if those links contain (as they often do) the headline to the article. If the High Court's decision is upheld on appeal, it fundamentally changes the balance of power between copyright owners and internet users in the UK and has implications for the digital economy far beyond the news aggregation market.