The Federación de Asociaciones de la Prensa Española (FAPE) held a conference on 14-15th March on journalists’ authors’ rights. Pamela Morinière, the EFJ authors’ rights campaign coordinator, was invited to give a presentation on the European perspective of journalists authors’ rights.
The conference represented a great opportunity for Spanish journalists to exchange their views on the difficult situation for journalists’ authors’ rights in Spain and compare their situation to the ones of their European colleagues. Pamela Morinière underlined the generally good quality of authors’ rights laws in Europe which was undermined by the difficulties faced by journalists in the negotiating process with media companies. She also referred to difficulties faced by journalists in “copyright countries” (the UK, Ireland and the Netherlands) where authors’ rights are automatically transferred to journalists’ employers.
The other speakers included law professors and lawyers. They examined the Spanish legislation on authors’ rights and its possible modifications to comply with the European Directive on authors’ rights and neighboring rights in the information society. The issue of moral right right- dear to the EFJ authors’ rights campaign- was highly discussed and gave Spanish journalists a better understanding on the necessity to be recognised as authors of their work.
