Meltwater’s bid to get the NLA’s new approach to digital copyright assurance reviewed by the Copyright Tribunal has just got a bit feistier.

The NLA has put out a press release (see below) about its intention to get the tribunal not to hear Meltwater’s case because the news reporting service does not have a NLA licence. I can see the point, but am not sure the Tribunal will. Time will tell.

The whole issue is continuing to stir strong feelings. After my blog post on this last week, NLA commercial director Andrew Hughes called me and wanted to put his side of the story.

The NLA’s perspective on what Meltwater has to say is that its digital licensing approach offers “simplicity where there is certainty”. And fair enough, if there are cut and dried copyright infringements that organisations would make unless they were licensed to prevent them from doing so, then a fee for that service is rightly due. The big question here is whether Meltwater’s activities represent copyright infringement. One for the legal experts to decide on, but for me it remains a grey area.

Andrew made the point that publishers had a “uniform” view on copyright and this new licence is in the interests of all of them. That’s understandable, although the issue remains that due to the variety of evolving revenue models we’re seeing from the UK media, there are many routes by which the PR or media monitoring sectors could potentially infringe copyright. Forwarding links to web-based content may not be profiteering from intellectual property, although that’s one for the officials to argue over and the NLA maintains that Meltwater’s service goes further than this and so crosses the line.

Thanks to Andrew for his comments and taking the time to pick up on what I had to say earlier. Meltwater, I’m all ears.

The NLA says Meltwater’s approach to the digital licence issue is unfair. Meltwater is saying bollocks, we’ll challenge the legality and appropriateness of this. The NLA is now saying come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough, but please make sure you have the requisite authority to make your point in court.

It’s not going to make EastEnders scriptwriters weak at the knees, but it’s a fair debate and one that needs to be had. And one I look forward to hearing.

In the meantime, here’s the press release:

Press Release
21 January 2010 – Newspaper Licensing Agency challenges Meltwater News

The Newspaper Licensing Agency has today written to the Copyright Tribunal arguing that, without having taken a licence, Meltwater News is not entitled to seek a review of the NLA’s web licensing scheme. If the Copyright Tribunal accepts the NLA’s challenge Meltwater should take an NLA licence for its reference to proceed.

David Pugh, managing director of the NLA, said: “If Meltwater wants the Copyright Tribunal to review the terms of our web licensing scheme, then they should, in fairness and in law, first take an NLA licence.

“The vast majority of press cuttings agencies and aggregating services have already agreed to the new licensing structure and are now licensed. Meltwater is an exception. By remaining unlicensed, it has a competitive advantage over other monitoring agencies and has created uncertainty for clients. All monitoring agencies should be on a level playing field.

“We are confident that the Copyright Tribunal will recognise that our web licensing scheme is measured and reasonable.”

The Newspaper Licensing Agency’s remit was extended to cover paid-for monitoring of newspaper websites from 1 January 2010. The NLA is also building a database – eClips web – which will increase the quantity and value of newspaper website content available to licensed users when launched in Q2 2010.

More details of NLA eClips web database and licensing services are available at www.nla-web.co.uk.

Notes to editors:
The NLA is owned by the 8 national newspaper publishing houses and generates B2B revenues for 1,300 national and regional publishers through licensing use of their content by press cuttings agencies (PCAs) and their client companies.

Web monitoring services are cuttings from newspapers or other websites generated by specialist software searching against specified keywords.

A full list of licensed monitoring agencies is available at: http://www.nla-web.co.uk/downloads/LicensedMMOs(2).pdf