Copyright Act 2019, news and current-events exceptions to copyright

Section 19(c) excludes news of the day or miscellaneous facts having the character of mere items of press information from copyright protection under Part 3.

Section 35 permits a person to copy or communicate to the public a newspaper article, periodical, communication to the public, lecture, speech, or other work of a similar nature, or excerpts of a work seen or heard while reporting a current event, for the purpose of reporting current events to the public, without the copyright owner's authorisation.

The amount copied or communicated must be no more than justifiable for the purposes of reporting, and the source and author's name must be acknowledged. This exception does not apply to copying a newspaper article, periodical, or similar work where the copyright owner has expressly prohibited that use.

Section 29 separately permits quoting from a lawfully published work without authorisation where the quotation is compatible with fair practice, does not exceed the extent justified by its purpose in a way that unreasonably prejudices the copyright owner's legitimate interest, and is used for the purpose of caricature, parody, or imitation, accompanied by a reference to the source and the author's name.

The Act creates no press-publisher neighbouring right, no compelled platform-to-publisher bargaining regime, and no text-and-data-mining exception, and defines a protected compilation as an original work by reason of the selection and arrangement of its contents rather than as a separate sui generis database right.