Where the money goes – NLA infographic outlines what the company does with the revenues it collects

One of the first questions people often ask when speaking to NLA media access staff for the first time is ‘where does your money go?’

The answer is – back to the publishers who employ the journalists creating the content!

In 2013 alone NLA media access collected and distributed over £26m in royalty payments to publishers; a figure that has grown year on year as demand for publisher content has increased.   Who we collect it from and how it helps the industry is outlined in the NLA infographic, published today.

This year, we are on track to deliver a further £25m+ in payments to publishers. National and regional newspaper groups continue to be well served by NLA and, in 2014, over £2.5m of royalties will be paid to magazine publishers, successfully represented by NLA for the first time.

Our money also goes on investing in databases.  As you will see from the infographic, NLA supplies daily and online news to 13 UK and 18 international media monitoring agencies and provides 7000 UK journalists with online access to a comprehensive database of news articles from 2006 to present day.  Around 20% of the revenue NLA media access collects each year goes into investment in new database services and covers operating costs, with the bulk (80%) of the company’s revenue paid directly to represented publishers.

This formula of investment in news services and efficient and regular royalty payments to publishers means an effective service for all; it also ensures the vast majority of the money collected goes back to the content creators  - newspaper and magazine publishers.

Wise words from Lord Grade

House of Lords, 29 July

Extract from the Copyright and Rights in Performances (Personal Copies for Private Use) Regulations 2014 debate

Col. 1571: Lord Grade of Yarmouth (Con): What has been unleashed is a global army of parasites who live off the investment that creative people have made in the UK and throughout the world. I publicly described Google as a parasite. I was picked up by one of its leaders, who asked: “Why did you describe us as parasites?”. I said, “Last week you used a clip of Susan Boyle on ‘Britain’s got Talent’ and had 300 million hits on YouTube. That piece of material cost us a great deal of money, you did not ask permission, and you put it out there to promote YouTube and Google’s fortunes”. He replied, “Well, if you had called us, we would have taken it down”. I replied, “If I go to Harrods and steal a Cartier watch; if they ring me up and say ‘Can we have it back?’, and I give it back it is not shoplifting”. What the Government have failed to understand throughout their deliberations on copyright since the Hargreaves report is that there is a direct correlation between investment and the investor’s ability to control and police its copyright, and to protect that investment to ensure that it gets value for it.

The Government seem to think in all the deliberations that I have heard, read and seen that there should be a free for all, that everything should be made free for the public and that there is a public interest in everything being made available as easily and freely as possible. Yes, there is a public interest in that but it will last about five years because in the end there will be no more investment in original content.

Throughout the creative industries, particularly the film, television and games industries, people are struggling to avoid piracy, and struggling to get value for the risk investment that they have made in the content. Since that wretched Hargreaves report, I have heard nothing from the Government to suggest that they understand that there is a public interest in continued investment in the creative industries.

Today’s Motion is yet another step forward in liberalising the copyright laws and chipping away at one of the great success stories. On the one hand, this Government have been tremendous at supporting the creative industries. I myself, as chairman of Pinewood Studios, have been a beneficiary of that, so I should declare an interest. But at the same time the Government are demonstrating a complete ignorance of the economics of investment in the creative industries. Today’s Motion is yet another example. It is time they tore up the Hargreaves report and listened to the people who make the investments. Then we might get some serious deregulation and some serious thinking about how we can modernise the copyright laws. But if this continues, I have to tell the Government that they are putting the creative industries at risk. 

Reshuffles and IP ministers

Another reshuffle, another IP minister; last week the Government announced it would appoint Baroness Neville Rolfe as the BIS minister responsible for IP and copyright, replacing predecessor Viscount Younger of Leckie. 

Baroness Neville Rolfe is undoubtedly an experienced operator with an impressive career spanning politics and business.  But, the continuing change in post does create a bit of a disconnect and uncertainty for those of us in the business of protecting the rights of creators.

The Register’s Andrew Orlowski neatly outlines some of the challenges that the new IP minister will face and points out that we have now had four IP ministers in less than two years.   If you go further back in time the figure reaches a total of seven IP ministers in seven years.

Despite all this, it is of course good news that the Government continues to take IP seriously enough to have a responsible minister for the brief.   We hope that Baroness Neville Rolfe will take a long hard look at whether statutory instruments, a fast track method of altering copyright exceptions with limited parliamentary scrutiny, is wise given the sometimes unintended impact even small changes to copyright exceptions can have on the UK creative industries.

Market changes in media monitoring

Karl Marx talked of the inexorable centralization and concentration of capital. Media monitoring, like other industries, has seen huge changes in the past 15 years.  Advanced technology has replaced scissors and glue, and businesses have invested to keep up with client demand for ever more sophisticated monitoring and evaluation services. In the UK and across the globe the much derided venture capital industry has provided the finance for major players to restructure their businesses, but now a wave of ownership changes have been announced or are in prospect.

Precise, UK no 2 by market share, has been sold to WPP-owned Kantar. Cision, a major international brand and formerly UK no 3  (then known as as Romeike -  one of the grand old names of press cuttings), is being bought and merged with Vocus, also US based  but a growing presence in the UK. Added to the mix, Gorkana (formerly Durrants) the UKs largest player, is for sale.  So it’s a good time for the money men. What does it mean for the clients?

The NLA view is that UK clients have been fortunate to have a vibrant and competitive media monitoring industry, with more suppliers and choice than in many other markets. An environment that encourages investment sustains that choice, as does a clear and simple copyright structure. The fact that MMOs can start a business in the UK with an NLA licence and the NLA eClips service has encouraged new entrants, some of which have grown to become major players. It is notable that countries where copyright is weakest have the poorest services for PR users, since without remuneration, publishers aren’t in a position to stump up multi-million pound investment in databases for MMO’s. But why would you invest when there is uncertainty over rights? Too much concentration of supply would be a concern, but, as with a fair number of Karl Marx’s predictions, we are some way from that.

So we think clients should welcome change, and the energy and investment that a new generation of owners will bring.  Bring it on. 

Playing copyright games

Earlier this month at the IP enforcement summit UK Music CEO Jo Dipple urged rights holders to do more to educate young people about copyright.

However often those young people, whether they be listening to music or reading a magazine online, are not all that keen to learn about a complex and hard to access subject.

Which is why we thought UK Music’s solution is brilliant.  They developed a mobile app and game ‘Music Inc’ which aims to both entertain young people and educate them about copyright and licensing within the music industry.   Launched jointly with the Government it helps explain the real effect piracy has on artists.  It has already been downloaded by 100,000 users – well beyond the normal audience of copyright enthusiasts!

Magazine and newspaper publishers often face similar difficulties in articulating the impact of piracy to an audience unaware frameworks are there to protect creators.  The internet has made it so easy to wholesale lift and copy content with little thought to the painstaking research, experience and effort brought to bear by the journalist who write it.

So hats off to Jo and UK Music for managing to illustrate this difficult issue in a visually engaging way.   We hope it has the intended effect.