Whose News? Copyright and the Dissemination of News on the Internet

News reporting plays an important sociological and political function in forming public opinion and thereby assisting in the democratic process but the publication of newspapers is also a lucrative business. The Internet and world wide web have revolutionized the ways in which news can be received and accessed thereby creating a perceived threat to traditional print newspapers. This paper examines the attempted reliance on copyright law and related intellectual property rights such as the database right by established print newspapers to control the dissemination of news on the Internet.|spagf|ro|epagf|