Copyright Infringement - a Wider View
Monday, February 9, 2015 at 10:31 Last week NLA media access hosted an industry roundtable looking at how the creative industries are fighting the rising tide of online copyright infringement. Following that, we felt it would be useful to share our experiences in a bit more detail.
What’s the scale of the problem for newspaper publishers?
In a typical week, over 13,000 articles from 5 major UK newspapers are cut and copied into other sites. These are often professionally-run sites supported by advertising and ecommerce services. One site alone took 488 articles in one week.
Who copies newspaper content?
NLA has established that the majority of sites infringing copyright were news and sport sites. Specialist sector, travel and tourism, academic, entertainment, blog/forum, independent/non-commercial sites were also infringing although at a lower volume.
We have also found that focusing on one nominally located domain type (e.g. ‘.uk’) fails to capture the whole problem. Of the 100 sites we recently reviewed that were infringing UK content, only 16 % were ‘.UK’ domains, 67% ‘.com’ and the remaining 17% other types (e.g. ‘.org’, ‘.net’ etc.).
What protections do publishers currently have?
In addition to brokering a deal in infringement between ISPs and the film industry, the UK government has funded a police unit (PICPU) to track and enforce copyright. The EC is also looking to provide support for anti-piracy initiatives. The creative industries have direct initiatives including the Publishers Association Copyright Infringement Portal and the long established PAFCT programme amongst many others.
Our response – OATS
NLA has developed a copyright infringement management service for publishers, which we call OATS (Online Article Tracking System). OATS uses web search technology to identify where newspaper articles are republished online, wrapped in a managed service where NLA also acts to enforce publisher rights on behalf of newspapers.
At the first stage sites identified as re-using content from the publishers are encouraged to link legitimately or to seek a licence from the content owner. If there is no response to the initial approach cease and desist letters are sent where appropriate.
More information on OATS can be read here
Why publishers invest in OATS
Direct returns from copyright infringement monitoring may be limited but publishers who invest in content realise compliance is necessary to protect their business. There is also a ‘hygiene’ benefit, letting the market know the owner is watching their activity and encouraging legitimate use.
At a wider level simply knowing what is happening to content on the web creates insights that allow publishers to better target compliance efforts.
Our success to date
A year on from the launch of OATS, it is already proving a valuable resource. Five national newspaper publishers are now paying NLA to identify and manage communication with infringing websites on their behalf, saving both time and resource.
To date, NLA has contacted in excess of 500 domains with a 75% success rate of removal of infringed content.
Industry response
Sophie Hanbury – Content Partnership Director, The Telegraph
“Working with OATS reiterates The Telegraph's commitment to protecting the copyright of our valuable news content whilst reinforcing a consistent strategic approach to our metered digital products and paid services. OATS has been highly effective in the drive to police large-scale systematic infringements and works in tandem with our Legal and Syndication teams to reassure our commercial partners that the contracted products and services they pay for are valuable, of a high quality and worth protecting.”
Helen Wilson – Content Sales Manager, Syndication, The Guardian
“Using OATS has enabled Guardian News & Media Ltd to contact a much higher number of sites who are currently misusing our content online. The weekly report provides rich metadata as to the type of site misusing content, the type of content which they are taking, in addition to the frequency of the misuse. Being a member of OATS has significantly reduced the time spent by the Sales team contacting copyright infringers, enabling them to focus their energies on new sources of revenue generation.”
More information
For more information on NLAs work with OATS, please contact George Shepherd at gshepherd@nla.co.uk or 0207 332 9367