Legal Issues

The IFJ Authors' rights campaign is set up to monitor legal developments that affect authors’ rights and lobbies for changes to improve the legal protection of authors’ rights.

In particular the IFJ

• Calls on national governments to implement the International Copyright Treaties (Berne Convention, WIPO Treaties) and EU legislation.


• Calls on governments to repeal legislation which allows for the transfer of authors’ rights to the publisher or producer.


• Encourages the inclusion of authors’ rights protection in collective bargaining; Collective negotiations that include clauses covering authors rights should be permitted and encouraged by law.


• Encourages journalists and journalists unions to test the legal protection of authors’ rights in courts where numerous decisions have supported the authors’ rights for journalists.