Major Italian newspaper infringes artists' copyright on account that it would have taken too long to clear the rights

Clearing the rights?
A waste of time, according to Corriere

Via Giuseppe Mazziotti (Trinity College, Dublin) and fellow IPKat contributor Alberto comes an appalling interesting story of possible copyright infringement concerning major Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

In the aftermath of last week's attack to Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris, this Italian newspaper decided to release a book entitled Je suis Charlie. Matite in difesa della libertà di stampa. This instant book (available for purchase since yesterday) is a collection of cartoons by professional and amateur artists produced "in the name of freedom".

Apparently Corriere intends freedom as encompassing not just freedom of the press, but also freedom from copyright.

In fact, as one of the authors concerned, Giacomo Bevilacqua, wrote on Wired.it the Corriere did not obtain a licence to reproduce such artistic works [on a similar topic, see here]. 

The reason? It is easily explained, by the Corriere itself, in a post-scriptum:

"Post Scriptum (following the criticisms): The revenues of this operation, it is worth repeating it, will be devolved to the victims of the murder and the Charlie Hebdo newspaper. Waiting for the formal consent from all the authors, in our opinion, would have significantly delayed this operation. Anyway on the fourth page of the book it is clearly stated that «the editor is available [to do what? Probably to be sued, suggests Merpel] towards the rightholders that he has not been able to find [or should one rather say: "the rightholders from whom he has not waited to hear"?]»

Interestingly enough, the Corriere article is followed by a disclaimer ["© RIPRODUZIONE RISERVATA"] that the article itself cannot be reproduced by third parties without permission from ... Corriere.

Anyhow, a couple of hours ago the Editor of Corriere della Sera, Ferruccio de Bortoli, tweeted that "For the book #CharlieHebdo the revenues are intended for #CharlieHebdo, @corriereit does not make make money out of it, the rights of authors are acknowledged (p4)"

Will this suffice to avoid liability for copyright infringement?

Probably not. This Kat personally finds it a bit patronising - if not totally unacceptable - that an author should feel discouraged from enforcing his/her rights, on account that the infringing act at hand has been committed for laudable reasons. Shouldn't one feel free to decide how to exploit his/her work, including whether to raise money for reasons other than personal financial gain? 

More on this story on The 1709 Blog soon.