NLA – copying, indexing and the Meltwater case Andrew Hughes

Newspaper Licensing Agency Ltd NLA – a track record of success Licences internal corporate copying and provides access to newspaper material Provides content services to press cuttings agencies (MMOs) NLA has collected £200m for UK newspapers in 16 years Current revenue £25m pa, growing Formed 1996, owned equally by 8 national publishers Represents 1450 UK titles NLA licenses 8,000 corporate users (150,000 companies) Acts as not for profit - retains income to cover expenses only 55 staff in London and Kent Member

Newspaper Licensing Agency Ltd Newspaper licensing is (relatively) easy Newspaper copying and licensing copying is very different from books and music Newspaper prices are low  Reduces incentive to copy but lowers fees Copying is first day only (mostly)  Old newspapers are for fish and chips (mostly) Newspaper copying is mostly by business users  Business needs to know what the press say  Private copying hardly matters Copying is structured and organised by press cuttings agencies  Valuable business service  Organised abuse of copyright  Easily measured Licensing press cuttings opens the door to licensing business

Newspaper Licensing Agency Ltd Is copying really necessary in the digital age? Copying is a means to and end;- why copy if you don’t need to? NLA provides most press cuttings users most press content online  NLA eClips collects newspaper data into central database  PCAs and client use eClips to access data. No copies are needed Digital publishing means all objects (stories) exist digitally Why copy it if it exists, can be found (index) and viewed (access) Access to these objects can be on publisher sites Indexing and access control becomes the vital technologies The index becomes as valuable as the content Indexing currently performed by web scraping Access is not charged That’s why Google is so valuable Publishers need;- To control and licence the indexing more sophisticated access options (eg )

Newspaper Licensing Agency Ltd Newspapers and free websites are both protected by copyright - how Meltwater learned the web is not free NLA extended its licences in 2010 to include free newspaper websites  Most press cuttings agencies supported this move  NLA has now licensed 500+ businesses to receive and access links to free websites Meltwater (Norwegian web based agency) refused a licence  Claims indexing websites is not copying  It is not possible to index without copying  Claims publication of free data implies licence to use NLA won UK High Court action  Indexing is copying  Headlines and text extracts are copies ((ECJ Infopaq ) Further appeals, potential ECJ referral coming Separate case on pricing due – Copyright Tribunal

Newspaper Licensing Agency Ltd So what does this mean? Newspapers and newspaper websites deserves protection.  Poland should support Repropol  shows the way Copying is a 20 th century battle  Digital publishing makes copying redundant The battle is moving from copying to indexing  But creating the index is a copying act  It should be the option of the owner to license or refuse permission (Copiepresse) Access management tools can refresh copyright for the 21 st century  The answer to the machine is the machine 