Rights, Exceptions, and the 'Work' of News

18 Pages Posted: 13 Dec 2018

See all articles by Graeme W. Austin

Graeme W. Austin

Victoria University of Wellington

Date Written: November 21, 2018

Abstract

This paper asks whether our understanding of the public goods issues that copyright addresses should extend to the task of facilitating more efficient internalization of investment in verification and authentication of news content. In recent years, we have seen firms entering a new market niche for verifying content that purports to report current events. These efforts sit alongside initiatives by social media platforms themselves to filter “fake news” from their sites. In an information ecosystem where there is plenty of content but a premium on truth and reliability, should copyright norms be more aligned with the work of these new third-party initiated “veracity markets”? That question implicates a larger set of issues related to how we think about incentives as the information ecosystem evolves – and about the continued salience of orthodox copyright norms in an information ecosystem that is no longer defined by scarcity.

Keywords: copyright, news, fake news, exceptions, fair dealing, citizen journalist

Suggested Citation

Austin, Graeme W., Rights, Exceptions, and the 'Work' of News (November 21, 2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3288245 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3288245

Graeme W. Austin (Contact Author)

Victoria University of Wellington ( email )

PO Box 600
Wellington, 6140
New Zealand

HOME PAGE: http://www.victoria.ac.nz/law/about/staff/graeme-austin

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