Re-Use the News : Between the EU Press Publishers’ Right’s Addressees and the Informatory Exceptions’ Beneficiaries

Through the recent Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, the EU legislator has attempted to regulate issues related to the rise of big digital players on the news content market by introducing a mechanism from the array of the copyright regulatory area—a new related right in favour of press publishers. This article focuses on the unorthodox legislative technique used to draw the scope of the new legal tool in view of its restriction to only a limited group of addressees. The probable practical effects of the new right are assessed against its interplay with the varied national transpositions of two pre-existing InfoSoc exceptions on the free use of copyright-protected works covering current events and topics. The ‘press review’ and ‘reporting of current events’ exceptions are analyzed in the context of recent case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the balance between copyright and freedom of information