Abstract

New communication technologies have changed the traditional models of information production and distribution. Publishers are raising concerns about the difficulty of recovering the investments made on the internet, in part because of the free-riding behaviors of actors such as search engines and news aggregators. In response, they are putting pressure on public authorities to develop a regulatory framework of digital environment, which may enable a greater protection of their contents, mostly through Ip enforcement or the creation of new Ip rights and the extension of the scope of existing ones. After an overview on possible scenarios and solutions, this article will focus on the specific proposal(s) to amend the Ip rights system as emerged in several Eu countries. Particular attention will be devoted to the question of effective applicabilità of the current copyright framework to the digital environment, and especially to news aggregators' behaviours. The article concludes with an analysis of the solutions already adopted in Europe, with a focus on the German and French systems, and argues on the (in)desirability of an intervention on copyright law in this field.