Another chapter closed today in the on-going case between Meltwater and the PRCA versus the Newspaper Licensing Authority (NLA). But the arguments are far from over yet.

The UK Court of Appeal issued a ruling upholding the original High Court judgement in favour of the NLA in November 2010. The court confirmed that commercial consumers of web content need a licence from the publisher to view content.

Web licences
In the case of UK newspaper publishers licences are issued by the NLA. Conceivably other licensing agencies could be created to police niches on the internet where web content is shared for commercial gain.

The Court said that the technological process of displaying a web page on a computer is not exempt from copyright.

“This positive interpretation of UK copyright law provides legal clarity and certainty for all players in the market,” said David Pugh, managing director, NLA.

“Publishers can be sure of fair royalties for the use of their content, suppliers of paid-for online monitoring services will benefit from a level playing field and clients of such services know that their licence provides a simple way to guarantee compliance with the law,” he added.

Meltwater and the PRCA are seeking permission to appeal this decision to the UK Supreme Court.

Personal versus commercial
The issue remains between commercial monitoring and personal usage. Google as a consumer search engine falls outside the NLA licence scheme.

“The NLA has dodged taking on Google because of size. Any solution that excludes Google is ignoring its massive presence in the industry,” said Ingham.

The story will continue at the Copyright Tribunal in September when Meltwater will seek a ruling on the fairness of the NLA’s licensing scheme.

“We are confident that the Copyright Tribunal will rule the NLA licensing scheme is over-reaching and unreasonable,” said Jorn Lyseggen, CEO, Meltwater.

In the meantime if you’re an agency or company that uses a commercial monitoring service such as Meltwater you’d be well advised to set aside fees for when the NLA comes seeking backdated settlements.

“We’ve advised PRCA members to set aside fees from the outset,” said Ingham.

You can calculate the likely cost to your organisation by using the NLA Web Fee Calculator. By my reckoning a 10-person agency sharing 100 links a week should expect to pay £300 per year, while a 50-person agency sharing 500 links a week should expect to pay £1,260 per year.

Content costs but who pays?
The root of the challenge to the NLA licensing issue lies in its newspaper publisher members fooling us into thinking that their content is free on the internet. In the 90s business models were set aside in the race for eyeballs as newspaper publishers made their content available for free.

Steve Kuncewicz, social media and intellectual property lawyer at HBJ Gately Waring LLP has gone further in media interviews today. He told The Drum that the ruling is a bid by the newspaper industry to retain revenue while the traditional publishing model fails.

Ultimately this on-going case must surely hasten a review of intellectual property law in the UK. It’s a point that Kuncewicz makes to The Drum.

“There’s a widening chasm between how we use the internet and the law. We’ll look back at this debate in five or ten years’ time and it will be a tiny parenthesis in the history of copyright in the UK,” said Lyseggen.

Speed is a Meltwater customer and a member of the PRCA.

Related blog posts:

• NLA ruling “absurd” says Cambridge IP Professor as Meltwater and the PRCA head back to court – 6 June, 2011
• Tackling copyright confusion and why Google isn’t a British firm – 20 May, 2011
• Meltwater expected to appeal High Court decision on NLA web licensing – 10 December, 2011
• NLA’s High Court ruling contradicts Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of net neutrality and an open web – 29 November, 2011
• NLA vs Meltwater: See you in court – 28 October, 2011
• NLA seeks High Court ruling on Meltwater challenge to web licensing – 24 May, 2011
• Links: a means of distribution, not an economy – 18 January, 2011