Freelance Journalists Suffer at Hands of News Aggregators

Freelance journalists have always faced a number of challenges when it comes to being paid a fair amount for their work. In an age where news aggregation (essentially the re-writing and re-publishing of work) becomes the norm, their financial security becomes even more uncertain.

The Daily Mail Australia recently refused to pay freelancer, Ginger Gorman, after re-publishing detailed pieces of her investigative journalism under their own journalists’ by-lines and insisting “there is no copyright in an idea”.

Gorman invoiced The Daily Mail for her work along with the following message: “As you’ll appreciate, I’m a freelance journalist and I spend hundreds of hours on my investigations.”

She continued: “It is unethical and possibly illegal for the Daily Mail to republish my work in this manner. In the first instance, your republication did great damage to the mental health of my interviewees.”

The Daily Mail declined to make the $2,000 payment and told the journalist: “As you will be aware, there is no copyright in an idea.

“Our journalists are free to follow articles in the media and, indeed, this practice is extremely common in the world of online journalism. Publication of [the story] does not in itself, therefore, amount to a breach of copyright.”

The Daily Mail did however offer to link back to the story and offer a goodwill payment to a charity featured in the article.

The Daily Mail in Australia has previously faced criticism from Australia News Corp for its widespread use of aggregation and sent a letter to The Mail threatening legal action and stating: “We have taken this action because we believe the Daily Mail Australia is breaching our copyright by lifting substantial slabs of original content from a large number of articles from our mastheads.”

The Mail and News Corp reached a confidential agreement three months later.

While large media house might have the legal clout to protect themselves from perceived breaches of copyright, humble freelances almost certainly lack this influence.

In an age where aggregation becomes the norm – we can expect to see the little, independent guys squeezed even more.