CorpComms Magazine

This article is in response to Meltwater director of new business development Jens-Petter Glittenberg's article responding to the NLA/Meltwater case.

Meltwater claim: Millions of UK professionals will unwittingly infringe copyright legislation on a daily basis

NLA response: The court's decision relates to a commercial user of a paid-for online media monitoring service who clicks on a link to an article on a newspaper's website. It does not affect the vast majority of Internet users who visit the newspapers' websites to read the news and articles for noncommercial purposes. The terms and conditions on the newspapers' websites specifically allow use of their content for non-commercial purposes, and accordingly there is no question of any copyright being infringed by the normal use of the Internet in that manner.

Meltwater claim: The NLA clarified that its intention was to raise [fees] by up to 570 per cent by 2014

NLA response: The NLA initially intended to charge the same price for copying newspapers' web content as for content published in print - but agreed during the 18-month consultation process with press cuttings agencies and web monitoring companies (2008/9) to launch web pricing at a highly discounted rate to print. The logic of this approach is that initially there will be crossover, with clients monitoring both, but longer term there will be a shift to web - at which point the prices need to be equivalent. Following Meltwater's referral of our licences to the Copyright Tribunal, NLA published a scale of reducing discount - which will make the prices equal in 2014. The amount is less than double for those who pay our variable rate (93 per cent of NLA licensees), but more for fixed rate (because the opening discount of 85 per cent needs to decline more sharply). The Copyright Tribunal will of course be ruling on that proposal in due course.

Clarifying the myths about online copyright law

Myth one: This makes reading newspapers on the Internet illegal unless the NLA says I can

Incorrect. Not unless you are a cuttings agency or one of its paying customers, that is; then you need a licence - and quite right too as you are benefitting from newspapers' own work. If you are just reading a newspaper on the Internet as an ordinary person you can sleep safely at night: no licence required.

Myth two: I can't send a link on the net to my colleague in the office next door without a licence

Yes you can, if it's for personal, non-commercial use. The court cases were about paid-for media monitoring services and their clients. If you want to share a press story that catches your eye, by all means send it on to a colleague or friend. (But if you pay someone to find newspaper content every day and send it around your business, you will need an NLA licence.)

Myth three: Most headlines can't be copyrighted

Actually four judges have now all agreed that headlines can be subject to copyright. That doesn't mean that you can't refer to a headline without infringing copyright, as some have suggested, but it does mean that headlines are protected when used as part of a professional media monitoring report. Headline writers skilfully capture the essence of an article - that is why they are valuable.

Myth four: When I click on a link the cuttings people send me, that's just a temporary copy - and that's legal without a licence

A complex legal issue, but for all practical purposes another myth. The law defines a 'temporary copy' simply as something that a bit of Internet plumbing does to send a bit of data on its way to you. But when you - as a human being - click your mouse on a link that the cuttings agency sends to you, then you do need a licence. That's the law.

Myth five: The NLA just doesn't get it. The Internet changes everything

The NLA has a proud record of 15 years of working with newspapers, monitoring agencies and their customers to enable them to operate a fast and accurate service. We've done it with physical papers and now we are doing so with web content. Our own eClips database service offers the cuttings agencies a better, faster service and they rate it very highly. We have now extended eClips to include web content. The people who don't 'get it' are the people who think the Internet means they can get something for nothing and enhance their own profit margins. We don't agree. We seek a fair return for newspaper publishers - that is all.

Click here to read former NLA chairman Dominic Young's reflections on the case

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