We have talked before on this blog about our work with the RNIB and Talking Newspapers, and our donations of over £800,000 to the Journalism Diversity fund. A list of charities supported by NLA publishers can be found here. Another big contribution the NLA makes to the Charity sector is giving discounted or free licenses to over a thousand charities.
Since 2003, following dialogue with the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, the Newspaper Licensing Agency has granted ALL UK charities a financial discount on their copyright licence, worth in excess of £1.5m since inception. To mark the tenth anniversary of the charity discount (and to reflect the NLA's introduction of licences for web-published content) we are pleased to announce an extension to the scheme to incorporate:-
• copying of content from newspaper websites
• republishing of copyright content for publicity purposes on charity websites.
The result is an increase in the financial discount available to charities of all sizes, from the current £150.00 to a maximum of £390.00.
In summary, the extended discount will be:
• financially beneficial to over 1200 licensed UK charities
• smaller charities will see the greatest relative discount
• and over 200 charities (with 5 or less staff) will continue to enjoy a FREE licence.
The NLA licence fees are a small fraction of the value charities get from their coverage and they are distributed in the form of royalties to publishers. NLA fees contribute the equivalent of 800 jobs in the newspaper industry, some in hard pressed regional and local titles. These journalists create the content which provides the publicity the sector thrives on.
We feel this move strikes a good balance; increasing our support for those charities most in need whilst ensuring newspaper publishers reliant upon NLA fees are fairly remunerated by larger charities benefiting from PR exposure in their titles.
Taz Ahmed (Tahmed@nla.co.uk) and Rhea Borland (rborland@nla.co.uk) – NLA Customer Services