Newspaper Licensing Agency makes major donation to Journalism Diversity Fund

The NLA yesterday donated £100,000 to the Journalism Diversity Fund, bringing its total support for the bursary scheme to over three quarters of a million pounds.

The Journalism Diversity Fund (JDF) was set up by the newspaper industry to support the training of journalists from ethnically and socially diverse backgrounds. 

The NLA is the JDF’s biggest supporter, and has been donating to it since its launch in 2005.

In 2011-2012 the scheme supported 19 students from diverse backgrounds who would not otherwise have had the financial means to support themselves on a NCTJ-accredited course.  Since its creation the JDF has provided bursaries for over 100 aspiring journalists. More

David Pugh

Managing Director, NLA

Has the NLA’s web licensing broken the internet?

There has been alarmist comment in some blogs – and even parliamentary committees – suggesting that the internet may somehow be at risk because of the 2011 High Court ruling that copyright applies to online publishing and supporting the NLA’s web licensing scheme for commercial copying of ‘newspaper’ web content!  

 Over at the 1709 copyright blog there has been some discussion of the effects of the Newspaper Licensing Agency’s litigation with Meltwater and the PRCA on “linking” and “browsing”.

One of the wilder claims is that the Court of Appeal’s decision on the NLA / Meltwater case risks making all browsing on the internet illegal.

Responding to a recent post on the same blog, Simon Clark, Head of Intellectual Property at Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP explains why this assertion is wrong.  It is recommended reading for anyone interested in the case and the full article can be found on the BLP website.

David Pugh

Managing Director, NLA

Copyright is in vogue

In the NLA’s view, copyright is critical to the fortunes of the creative industries and a focus on copyright law is likely to grow as creators wrestle with the opportunities and threats posed by the internet. This interesting piece just published by Niri Shan and Adam Rendle at Taylor Wessing highlights the fact that copyright licensing is receiving a lot of attention from the UK government and the EU – with more initiatives than summer rainfall.

Among other insightful observations in this overview of the landscape, they note that “…the question asked by policymakers appears to have changed from "What can we do for creators and their works?" to "What can creators and their works do for us?" Now read on…

David Pugh

Managing Director, NLA

How can we make international copyright licensing easier for clients?

Media monitoring agencies and their commercial clients are increasingly interested in international print and web content. We see significant demand for the major US titles we host on eClips (WSJ and International Herald Tribune), and our media Monitoring Organisation (MMO) partners underline the growing demand. Serving this requirement efficiently is a major challenge - getting rights and data from thousands of major news providers when the volume and value of use is relatively small is tough, and users expect the same service and terms they pay for UK newspapers.  NLA has invested heavily in this area for years. We are members of www.ifrro.org and exchange rights with licensing agencies in other countries, which allows us to licence access to hundreds of international newspapers.

NLA is also a founding member of www.pdln.info - a specialist group we set up to try and help users get rights and access to international content. PDLN now has 25 members in 17 countries who are working on a program – PDLN Connect – which aims to simplify and standardise technical and licence terms for use of international content. There are significant technical, legal and commercial barriers to progress but we have already seen German, Austrian Swiss, Belgian and UK content made available through PDLN, and we expect more progress soon. NLA is now processing 15 major French titles in eClips for PDLN member CFC, and this should further accelerate international content linkages.

NLA has also invested in eClips International and eClips Ireland, with remixed versions of the UK content and terms for overseas media monitoring companies. These innovations have allowed hundreds of overseas users to access UK content more efficiently.

NLA feels that the way to improve international media monitoring for clients is for publishers and Media Monitoring Agencies to work together to create solutions: which is why PDLN hosted its first PDLN Connect Content Forum with major MMAs and their representative bodies AMEC and FIBEP in Dublin in June 2012. We plan to follow up with a London seminar for agencies this autumn.

There are no magic bullets for resolving international copying requirements, but a lot of hard work is going on. The NLA is committed to offering UK and international users 21^st century solutions to content access – and hope to report on new, market-driven solutions in the coming months. 

Andrew Hughes

Commercial Director, NLA

Richard Hooper’s final report on the Digital Copyright Exchange

On Tuesday this week Richard Hooper and Ros Lynch published their long-anticipated report on the feasibility of a Digital Copyright Exchange.  The objectives of the Copyright Works report are supported by the Newspaper Licensing Agency - we agree with Hooper’s emphasis on the need for good metadata standards and ‘interoperability’ of databases to enable simpler licensing that will benefit both publishers and organisations using and sharing content for professional news monitoring.

 Since its formation the NLA has been in the business of simplifying access to content and improving data quality for the media monitoring industry.  Services provided by the NLA’s e-clips print and web database serving media monitoring companies have delivered efficiencies and improved timeliness and quality of cuttings for Media Monitoring Organisations and their clients.

 The obvious next step is to streamline cross border and cross repertoire licensing via a Digital Copyright – and ideally ‘Content’ - Exchange.   As a member of the Linked Content Coalition and the Press Database Licensing Network the NLA has already been working with the wider UK and international copyright industry to do just that - and ensure that businesses and consumers can enjoy copyrighted content quickly, simply and legally.

 As both Hooper and the Register note, a one size fits all database may seem a nice idea on paper but won’t necessarily work in practice.  More likely to succeed are a series of smaller, interoperable hubs - which is exactly what the NLA and Linked Content Coalition is working on. 

David Pugh

Managing Director, NLA