unicornnews: NLA dispute to last a year

The dispute between the media relations and press cuttings industries and the Newspaper Licensing Agency over the latter’s efforts to launch a ‘links licence’ will rumble on for at least a year. Papers published by the UK Copyright Tribunal last week revealed that in a preliminary hearing last month the copyright court rejected the NLA‘s efforts to have the legal case against the agency dismissed, and then ruled it wouldn’t consider the disagreement in full until February 2011.

As previously reported, the NLA argues that agencies who provide corporate clients with lists of relevant newspaper headlines and links to the actual articles than mention their company should have to pay a licence fee, in the same way they would if they provided photocopies of the actual articles. But the PR industry argues that because no copies are made when links are provided, the copyright laws that empower the NLA in the print media and photocopy domain don’t apply with digital links.

Cuttings agency Meltwater and the PR Consultants Association are opposing the NLA‘s efforts to launch the links licence, and took the matter to the Copyright Tribunal, the court that considers disputes specifically relating to copyright issues and royalty payments. The NLA was forced to suspend its link licence operations when Meltwater began its action, and given the time scale of the Tribunal hearing those operations will now have to be on hold for over a year.

In related news, the NLA recently announced a new fee structure regards their traditional newspaper copying licences for smaller PR agencies, those with less than five staff and three or less clients. The new fees will simplify the licence system for said agencies and, the NLA argues, reduce their costs. Though the boss of one affected agency said that while he recognised both the NLA‘s claims were true, it still wasn’t a cost effective licence for his company.

Mervyn Edgecombe, MD of London-based PR agency Mervyn Edgecombe Associates, told Communicte: “The old system was so complex and convoluted that anything that simplifies the process has to be welcome. [But while] £150 [per client] may not sound much, that’s £450 for the three main accounts that would warrant this license, and there’s not enough value to justify it. When we get the coverage, we just send the office junior out to buy an extra copy of the paper”.

Posted Monday March 22 2010 by Chris Cooke

Related categories: PRCA