PR Bristol reported today that the NLA is introducing a set of charges for the distribution of newspaper website content for business-to-business. PR Week carried the story at the end of last month.
According to PR Bristol from January 2010 if you circulate a web page to a client both your agency and the client will need to pay the new NLA eClip charge. Clipping agencies will become liable for the cost from September 2009 and are likely to pass on the cost.
In the growing number of comments on the PR Bristol site an unnamed individual from the NLA defends its position.
“Licensing charges will only affect those client businesses who receive and use digital newspaper cuttings as part of their business. If a PR agency systematically monitors newspapers on behalf of a client, this is commercial use of copyrighted material and you need an NLA licence.”
“The NLA estimates that over 95% of PR agencies – if they copy digital content to clients – should see an increase in client copying fees for the inclusion of newspaper web content of less than £100 per year; while the agencies’ own license costs could increase by around 10%, entirely depending on what they do.”
I’ve long criticised the PRCA for its limp approach. But director general Francis Ingram has led the defence of the industry. And he’s having none of it. On his new blog he criticises the NLA for creating confusion and introducing additional cost at a time when the industry is under numerous pressures.
“[…] they’re talking about charging agencies and their clients for URLs. They’re talking about charging PRCA members for directing their clients to the newspapers’ own sites. And then charging clients too. That is simply outrageous. If the newspapers want to make their content available for free, and then live off the advertising revenue, then good luck to them. If they want to charge for web content, then – again-that’s their choice. But charging for links to publicly available, free material is utterly ridiculous.”
I’m all for protecting intellectual property but by any measure this move by the NLA is ill thought out.
At Speed we are increasingly sharing a digital monitoring dashboard with our clients. It’s an open source platform built on Netvibes that sucks in content from across the web – including national newspapers. Will this attract an NLA levy?
When I share the results of Google News search or a RSS aggregator that has pulled in content from national media with colleagues and clients will they need to pay per click?
And what of the future of the Guardian Open Platform? Will its commercial partners now need to pay to republish content?
I think the NLA needs to host a proper debate on this issue.
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And what happens when someone shares a link on Twitter and a client happens to follow you?
What about using a bit.ly or tinyurl link to divert to that site? In that instance, you’re not sharing the link with the client, but a re-direct. Will they charge for that?
It’s utter ridiculousness and racketeering. How is it ‘copying’ if you are linking to content stored on their servers and not reproduced? You’re not even at the edges of infringing on a trademark if the publication name is in the URL that you’re forwarding around.
Playground bully tactics, pure and simple. They’re trying to steal people’s lunch money and someone needs to step in a put them on the naughty step.
So asking one industry to pay for what is free is justified? Or will they be charging Google too? There is no reason for this other than to squeeze PR agencies and their clients. The NLA intends to smother the opportunity to prove the value of online PR to clients, by sucking us all dry at the very sniff of a new PR practice.
I am as delighted as you to see the PRCA stand firmly against this. We need to stand together and protest with a single voice. This must not happen.
10 Yetis Ponder NLA’s Decision on e-clippings – New Tax for PR’s…
Andy reporting in for a bit of a blog rant and questioning session.
For the last month or so I have been seeing a growing tide of some of the greatest PR Minds talking about the Newspaper Licensing Agency’s proposal to add e-clips to their armoury…
The NLA has shown itself time and time again to assert misplaced authority over PR agencies with rudeness and a climate of fear.
Yes intellectual property should be protected, but the media industry needs to redefine how it will charge for content. That’s the priority here, not a clumsy and desperate (even laughable) clampdown.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s a protection racket, but it’s certainly (in this case) abusing its position in the protection bracket.
[...] NLA goes on the defensive over eClips charges as PRCA leads industry fight back | Wadds’ PR Bl… [...]
This is a shocker – another exmple of big, lumbering vested interests just not ‘getting’ it. Will even harder to police and enforce than the old cuttings system.
You just can’t fine someone for sharing links.
This is so funny. It’s like watching the music industry implode all over again. All you need to do is watch the battles the RIAA (and the rest) have had trying to pull money from thin air. All that will happen is that new models will come and the original people/agencies will die a slow and bitter death.
The age of free is upon us, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t money to be made.
This is going to be interesting.
[...] Stephen Waddington from Speed communications also put a spanner in the works when he highlighted the increasing use (especially with online PRs) in using RSS feeds or aggregated content on Netvibes (or in our case Pageflakes.) He also makes a good point about the Guardian’s new open source API – will this be exempt then? I would add to this and ask what about online news publishers, blogs and Ohmynews.com that refer to a client’s coverage for example? [...]