Copyright review - A free press must be paid for content

Like any legal bulwark against theft the idea of copyright legislation may seem remote until it is breached.

In Ireland, as in much of the world, copyright legislation has not evolved as quickly as information technology and creative industries — film, music, television, book publishing, IT design, and newspapers — have had to cope with an ever-changing reality that threatens their existence. Work generated through effort, skill, imagination, professionalism, and usually considerable capital investment, is pirated by businesses with no connection to the creative process as a means to win revenue without risk or outlay. This process is hardly different to what we more commonly describe as theft.

The scale of the piracy is astounding. In 2010, while every media company in the country shed jobs and cut costs to the bone, a single search engine operating in Ireland offered around 150,000 newspaper articles that cost publishers an estimated €46.5m to generate. Last year that site offered more than 350,000 articles at a cost equivalent to more than €110m. And all without paying one cent to those who created those articles.