WHEREAS, the right to intellectual property has been one of the pillars of the development of the professional media, in that quality journalism requires strong investments, particularly in human resources, that must be protected
WHEREAS, the existence of organizations that sustain professional journalism is one of the essential characteristics of democracy, as regards spaces of social auditing of public and private powers, tools of information of the people and instruments of rendering of accounts by the authorities
WHEREAS, while journalistic work is an intellectual creation, it has always been protected within the analogous environment by copyright laws that guarantee editors the right to establish conditions for its dissemination and reproduction, avoiding the misappropriation and undue profiting from said intellectual work by third parties
WHEREAS, said protection is as or more pertinent in the digital area, in which journalistic contents are reproduced, cited, repacked, distributed and published by platforms or social media that obtain as a result of them direct or indirect benefits
WHEREAS, it is necessary to come up with formulas that point to greater balance in the distribution of those benefits, so that the value added that the contents generate be shared with those that produce them, avoiding abuses and assuring just payment for the use of other people's work
WHEREAS, the news contents are a critical element in the consumption of information in the digital era and on the contrary the revenues from this ecosystem are concentrated on the platforms that receive nourishment from those contents but do not produce them
WHEREAS, the recent IAPA Salta Declaration establishes in its Article 12 that actors in the digital ecosystem must achieve an adequate balance between freedom of expression and intellectual property rights and copyrights, as well as with respect to any benefits that may be generated by the contents in that ecosystem.
THE IAPA MIDYEAR MEETING RESOLVES
to express its satisfaction at the recent passing of the new copyright law by the European Parliament which will allow news editors to share in the benefits that are generated by their contents with the intermediaries of the digital ecosystem
to urge countries to promote initiatives that seek to protect the work of the press and ensure equitable payment for it in the digital environment, which allows that key task for democracy to continue to be carried out.
