News Scraping and Copyright in Nepal: What Aggregators May Take
News scraping copyright in Nepal: facts are free but articles are protected — what aggregators may copy, when quotation is lawful, and the licensing path.
Nepal's digital news economy runs on a routine transaction that nobody has papered: one portal publishes, others scrape the headline, the lede, sometimes the whole piece, sometimes without attribution. The copyright question is sharper than the etiquette question — and the law answers it more clearly than the industry admits.
The line runs between facts and journalism, and most scraping operations are on the wrong side of it.
In short
News scraping copyright in Nepal turns on the idea-expression line: the facts in a story are free for anyone to report, but the article — its headline composition, prose and structure — is a protected literary work the moment it is published. Scraping wholesale text is infringement even with attribution; licensed syndication, quotation with credit, or independent reporting on the same facts are the lawful paths.
News scraping copyright: facts are free, the journalism is not
Copyright never protects facts, information or ideas — anyone may report that the budget changed, the bridge opened, the score was 3–1. What the Copyright Act, 2059 (2002) protects is the expression: the written article, its particular words, structure and selection of detail, protected automatically from the moment of publication. A scraped article is a copied work whether or not the scraper credits the source.
The distinction escapes the industry because the product looks like information. It is information delivered in a protected form — and the form is what the law protects.
Legal references
- Copyright Act, 2059 (2002) — full text (Nepali) — Nepal Law Commission
- Nepal Copyright Registrar's Office — online registration portal — Government of Nepal
What scraping actually takes
| Practice | Copyright position | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Reporting the same facts independently | Lawful | Facts are free; the new article is new expression |
| Headline plus link | Generally defensible | Minimal taking; a title alone is rarely a protected work |
| Lede paragraph reproduced in full | Infringement risk — substantial taking | The lede is expression, taken whole |
| Full article mirrored, credited or not | Infringement | Reproduction of the entire work; credit is not permission |
| Aggregated excerpts of many sources | Depends — proportion and substitution decide | Compilations can be original too; wholesale excerpting substitutes |
The Nepali legal frame
The rights engaged are the publisher's copyright in each article and, where the reporting is someone's livelihood, the economic logic behind them: reproduction and communication to the public are exclusive rights, and infringement carries the Act's remedies — from takedowns and compensation to the enforcement machinery. Attribution engages the author's moral rights; it does not licence the taking.
Two aggravating layers matter in practice. Website terms that forbid republication strengthen the publisher's contractual hand. And wholesale scraping of many articles starts to look like taking a compilation — its own protected work where the selection and arrangement are original.
The lawful paths for aggregators and platforms
License instead of scraping
A syndication or content licence — scope, term, fee — converts the relationship from infringement risk to supply chain. Nepali publishers sell these; the paperwork is standard.
Quote within quotation limits
Short excerpts with credit, serving commentary or reporting, sit inside the fair-use style allowances; the excerpt must not substitute for the original.
Report the facts yourself
The lawful aggregator is a newsroom: take the tip, verify independently, write the piece in your own words. The facts cost nothing; only the prose does.
For publishers: protecting the newsroom's output
Publishers hold the rights automatically — the work is proving and enforcing them. Practical defences: registration of flagship or syndication-valued content at the Copyright Registrar's Office as dated ownership evidence; website terms and republication policies; watch-and-enforce routines for serial scrapers, escalating from platform complaints to notices; and an off-the-shelf syndication licence, so the infringing relationship can be converted into a paying one.
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This article is general information, not legal advice.