Platform Liability for Unauthorized Distribution of News Content: A Comparative Study of India, EU DSM Directive & US DMCA

While the rapid expansion of digital platforms has been beneficial to the creation, circulation, and consumption of news content, it has also been a major contributing factor to the problem of unauthorized distribution. Social media networks, search engines, news aggregators, and user-generated content platforms are frequently the places where unlicensed excerpts, snippets, or entire articles are hosted or shared without proper authorization, thus raising complex questions of copyright liability. This article compares the platform liability regimes in India, the European Union (EU), and the United States (US) regarding the unauthorized digital distribution of news content. In India, the intermediary liability as per Section 79 of the IT Act, read with the 2021 IT Rules and the Copyright Act, provides a conditional safe harbour but is silent on targeted mechanisms for the protection of news publishers. On the other hand, the EU’s DSM Directive, in particular Article 15, creates a specific “press publishers’ right” thus, charging platforms with the obligation of licensing and filtering. The US DMCA takes a more subdued stance with a “notice-and-takedown” approach as per Section 512, which is the reason why the liability is waived if the platform, upon obtaining actual knowledge of the infringement, acts promptly.