The NLA v Meltwater – three things to remember this week

The NLA / Meltwater Supreme court case around ‘temporary copying’ begins today.

We know that there is often confusion from some quarters as to where the NLA v Meltwater case has reached, what it covers and what the future implications are.

With that in mind, we hope the following points clear up some of the common misconceptions:

The Supreme Court case is considering the relevance of the ‘temporary copying’ exemption in the Copyright Designs and Patents Act in the context of a paid-for Meltwater monitoring service.  The attempt to use this copyright exception to legitimise an unlicensed Meltwater service failed in the High Court (2010) and Court of Appeal (2011); but it is having another outing this week in the Supreme Court.

The Copyright Tribunal case, covering the terms and pricing of NLA web monitoring licences, was resolved last year and licensing terms were accepted by all parties.  The NLA has now licensed most Meltwater clients, together with the clients of all other UK media monitoring agencies.  A joint statement by the NLA, Meltwater and PRCA accepting the decision is available here.

This Supreme Court appeal does not affect current services; instead, it raises a hypothetical issue – whether a heavily revised service in which the end user did not receive copyright material but only opened articles on a publisher site might be validated by the “temporary copying” exception.  NLA argue this exception is very limited and only applies to intermediaries, such as ISPs to allow networks to pass data; the PRCA (on the same side as Meltwater) that it applies to any browsing by users.  That is what the Supreme Court will address.

Most acts of internet browsing are encouraged by publishers and are either authorised or fall within an existing exception.  Browsing a website for private study and non-commercial research is already expressly encouraged and permitted by publishers’ terms of use and by existing copyright law – for example. it is not an infringement of copyright if such acts are undertaken for “the purposes of research for a non-commercial purpose” or for “the purposes of private study”.  For those readers interested in a more detailed explanation, Simon Clark, Head of IP at Berwin Leighton Paisner, wrote an article on the matter which is well worth a read.

Although a reference to the European Court of Justice is possible we hope to have a final judgment soon.  Whatever the result, the NLA will continue to provide businesses and publishers with efficient rights and content exchange services.

Andrew Hughes

Commercial Director, Newspaper Licensing Agency

Follow the NLA on twitter:  @nla_ltd

Meet the NLA staff

The NLA has a hardworking staff team split between its London and Tunbridge wells offices. We interviewed one of the team for the blog to explain a little more about what the organisation does day to day.

Dave Martin

Dave Martin is the NLA’s senior account manager.  He is part of the team responsible for assisting and advising new clients of their licence requirements. He is based in the company’s Tunbridge Wells office.  Dave has been with the NLA for 8-and-a-half years.

My day to day work:  Normally my role will be to explain to companies why a licence for copyrighted newspaper clippings or web content is needed.  I will help them make a decision on what licence they need and ensure it is as cost effective as possible. I’m also responsible for writing the company literature that we send to clients such as licence application forms.

How has the NLA changed since you started here?  When I first started work here the NLA was a very different organisation and had a reputation for being tough.  As we have become more established and more people grow to understand the benefits of having a licence I think relations with customers have definitely improved.  The staff work hard to build up a positive relationship with our customers and to clear up any misunderstanding or confusion.

Best day in the office:  The company is a great place to work for and my favourite day has to be when I finalised a licence for a very well-known company after years of negotiations to establish the type of licence that best suited its needs.  But, I enjoy most days because I love the people I work with.

Hobbies out of work: With three small children I am pretty busy looking after them when not in work –so no time for hobbies just now!

Favourite read:  It has to be The Sun, for Dear Deidre!

An evidence based approach to copyright – and its value to UK plc.

Last year, the NLA joined a group of licensing agencies and publishers to support the  Stationers’ Company initiative to fund a position at The Department of Information Studies at University College London (UCL) for a three year research studentship.  The purpose of the position is to study the broader commercial implications of copyright and intellectual property for the publishing industry in the digital age.

Aislinn O’Connell, a Master’s student in international business law was picked for the post and started on the project this week.  She aims to work closely with the UK copyright community to understand the economic and commercial evidence and legal arguments surrounding copyright and the creative economy. 

There is a growing body of evidence, including this study recently published by the IPO, that copyright not only underpins the future of UK based creative industries, but contributes billions to the economy. However, this is a fast moving area and there is certainly more that can be done to examine linkages between copyright and IP, the creative economy and the balance sheet of UK plc.  Such evidence is critical to the Government in making an informed decision on any future changes to the current copyright regime.

This was well put by Trevor Fenwick, managing director of Euromonitor, who conceived the project and leads the Stationers’ Copyright Group: “Whenever we submit arguments that the 300 year old right to intellectual property which is copyright still underpins the future of all the creative industries we are asked ‘where’s your evidence’?  The appointment of a three-year research post at UCL is intended to address this, particularly from a publishing perspective.”

The NLA is pleased to be able to support this valuable research project alongside the Publishers Licensing Society, Copyright Licensing Agency, Pearson and Euromonitor.

David Pugh

Managing Director, NLA

Copyright Licensing Group gets off to a flying start

The NLA attended the first meeting of the Copyright Licensing Steering Group last week. The CLSG is chaired by James Lancaster and over the coming months will be coordinating the work of a number of work streams that stem from Richard Hooper and Ros Lynch’s Copyright Works report, published last year. The most publicised recommendation of the report is the establishment of a Copyright Hub, to facilitate simpler and automated acquisition of copyright licences for small businesses; but other groups are working on streamlining music licensing (led by PPL and PRS for Music), simplifying education licensing and agreeing common metadata standards for creators and publishers – which will create the building blocks for smoother digital licensing.

The NLA has joined other licensing and publishing companies in funding the first year of the project, but it is hoped that government funds will be available to support the work after that – if enough progress is made and the benefits to the creative economy can be demonstrated. Anyone who wants to follow the progress of the Copyright Hub project can now do so at the new web site.

David Pugh

Managing Director, NLA

URLs and Licensing – UK position

As one of the Irish diaspora and a member of the UK’s NLA team involved in the Meltwater case, I have read the furore in Ireland with respect to commercial use of newspaper URLs, with some personal interest and professional enthusiasm.

For clarity, the current position in the UK amongst the majority of publishers is that the posting of links (excluding headlines & text extracts) on company websites is acceptable and does not incur a NLA licence charge.

On the other hand, if your company wants to take advantage of positive press and many do, the NLA now has a Corporate Website Republishing licence, which gives companies permission to post full articles, headlines and text extracts on their corporate websites and social media sites.

If your company has subscribed to an online media monitoring service and is receiving links to NLA newspaper content via this service, then a licence is necessary.  This area was the focus of the NLA legal cases over the course of the last few years.

It’s worth repeating that the core issue for newspapers is the unlicensed reproduction of content for commercial gain, not personal use or the mere use of URLs.

Susan Dowley

Director of Sales and Marketing, NLA