THE AGENCIES that monitor the content of daily press and magazines and sell it to their clients will have to make an agreement with publishers, as the press will become subject to copyright law protection. MPs passed the amendment to the law on September 3, refusing to accept the objections of President Ivan Gašparovič, who vetoed the bill in July and returned it to parliament, the SITA newswire reported.
The president disagreed with the proposal to consider the press to be collected works.
“In my opinion it is an unfounded protection if, according to the passed law, newspapers are collected works and, as such, are subject to the copyright law,” Gašparovič said back in July.
He also said that through this change the copyrights of publishers will be protected, SITA wrote.
Earlier in the day the parliamentary media committee recommended that deputies not accept the president’s comments on the matter, as did the constitutional parliamentary committee in the end of August, the TASR newswire wrote.
The Culture Ministry prepared the amendment to the copyright law to include the regulation of the European Parliament and Council of the European Union passed on September 27, 2011 over the term of copyright protection and some related laws into Slovakia’s legislation.
It lengthens the protection of a voice recording of an artistic performance from 50 to 70 years.
The new law also states that the subject of the law will be collected works in any form, including electronic ones in both analogue and digital form, especially collections, newspapers, magazines, encyclopaedias, analogies, variety shows, exhibitions and databases.
The ministry said the new law is not aimed at monitoring agencies or other subjects that monitor the press.
“It responds to the practice when, on one hand, we have creators of newspapers and magazines, so-called collected works, and on the other hand, companies which use parts of newspapers and sell it as monitoring,” Culture Minister Marek Maďarič said, as quoted by SITA.
The new amendment will come into force on November 1, 2013.
