Vol. 508 No. 1
171 Mr. Gormley asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment her views on whether the Copyright and Related Rights Bill, 1999, is weighted in favour of newspaper corporation and individual proprietors in that they will gain the sole rights to their journalists' work while the latter will remain solely responsible for anything in an article which has been shown to be libellous; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [18394/99]
The general rule under copyright law, both in Ireland and internationally, is that where a copyright work is made by an employee in the course of his or her employment, the first owner of the copyright in such a work is deemed to be the employer rather than the employee. Section 10 of the Copyright Act, 1963, provides for a single exception, whereby journalists who are employees of a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical, retain copyright in works prepared by them in the course of their employment with the journal concerned, except in relation to acts undertaken in connection with the publication of such works in the journal concerned. It is important to understand that this exception applies to print journalists only; employee journalists in non-print media are not included.
In reviewing this provision in the context of the preparation of the Copyright and Related Rights Bill, 1999, I came to the conclusion that the exception in favour of employee journalists in the print media was seriously anomalous in relation to the treatment of employee copyright both in non-print journalism, and in relation to works created by employees in the course of their employment generally. On this basis, I could find no justification for its continuation in the legislation designed to replace section 10 of the Copyright Act, 1963. However, I was anxious to ensure that the new legislation would include some recognition of the fact that employee journalists in the print media had for many years enjoyed qualified ownership of the copyright in their works, however anomalous that situation might have been. Accordingly, while section 23 of the Copyright and Related Rights Bill, 1999 does not contain the existing section 10 exception, it does provide employee journalists with a right to use works prepared by them in the course of their employment for any purpose other than for the purposes of making available those works to newspapers or periodicals, without infringing copyright in those works. I believe that this provision strikes a fair balance between the legitimate interests of employee journalists and their employers in this matter.
On the question of libel, the Deputy will appreciate that I am not in a position to comment on this matter in detail. In any event, questions of civil law and its reform, including defamation, are unrelated to copyright, and fall within the area of responsibility of my colleague, Deputy John O'Donoghue, Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. I understand, however, that the law regarding the repeated expression of a libel, together with the doctrine of the vicarious liability of employers for civil wrongs committed by their employees in the course of their employment, would in practice mean that a newspaper will be held to share responsibility for any libels which it may print with the responsible journalist, whether that journalist is an employee of that newspaper or not.
