Copyright licensing for schools
Wednesday, February 5, 2014 at 14:26 Over the past year representatives of the creative industries have worked together to implement recommendations from Richard Hooper’s report on streamlining copyright licensing for schools.
As a result of work by the Copyright Licensing Steering Group and a separate review of the education sector, NLA media access (acting on behalf of newspaper publishers) made two important decisions:
- To start charging a fee for the NLA Schools Licence
- To appoint the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) as our agent for newspaper licensing
Currently schools pay for copying rights for media such as books, magazines, music and film. NLA media access is now making its policy consistent with market practice. The new NLA Schools Licence provides comprehensive cover for newspapers based on a standard set of terms to match the CLA licence.
By appointing CLA as exclusive agent NLA is simplifying the licensing process for schools, offering a single point of contact and centralised administration.
Other changes such as a survey based on existing CLA data collection processes, plus a single licence renewal date of 1st April, will simplify copyright administration even further.
Why should my school have a newspaper licence?
Whenever a teacher, staff member or student makes a copy of a newspaper or newspaper website they are required to contact the publisher and seek permission. The NLA Schools Licence covers the school for any copying for teaching purposes and provides the necessary permission from multiple publishers in one simple transaction. There are over 1500 national and regional newspapers and 1000 newspaper websites covered, in addition to selected foreign titles.
What will it cost?
For Independent schools and those in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, the fees will be £50 for schools with fewer than 750 FTE students and £75 for more than 751 FTE students.
Through CLA administered arrangements with the Department for Education, all state-maintained schools in England will be covered under a blanket CLA licence until 2015.