Authored by Attorney-at-law and PhD in Copyright Law Eva Nødskov Aaen
The Act is intended to protect the position of Danish media against e.g. Google, Facebook and YouTube using their content on the internet without paying for it.
With these amendments, Danish media will obtain a protected exclusive right for online use of their content for a period of two years from the date of publication.
As a result of the amendments, Google News, Facebook and others are no longer allowed to gather the contents of other news media on their own services without remunerating the news media. Going forward, the various Danish news media may join forces and make collective agreements with the tech giants to ensure that they receive payment for their content.
However, linking to an article without permission is not prohibited; the aim is to prevent the reproduction of content providing users with the information they need without the users having to visit the original website.
Moreover, user-driven tech giants such as YouTube are responsible for content uploaded to their platforms and must ensure that permission from the rightsholders is obtained. Up until now, this responsibility rested with the users, and YouTube was only liable if YouTube became aware of the infringement. Now, YouTube is directly liable to the artist, for instance.
Failure to observe the above-mentioned rules will constitute an infringement of the rightsholder’s copyright, which may be sanctioned and prohibited.