British agency to try and license web links

Britain's Newspaper Licensing Agency has announced it is to begin regulating its customers' use of hyperlinks to newspaper articles on the web, according to a story in Press Gazette. The agency, which controls reproduction of newspaper clippings by news monitoring services and public relations agencies, will introduce an extension to its licences later this year.

It's a controversial move, since it means that the originator of an article could control the way that other organizations, readers and websites link to it.

According to a circular sent to members of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, and seen by Press Gazette, the NLA will be introducing a new form of licence from 1 September to regulate "web aggregator services (such as Meltwater) that forward links to newspaper websites and for press cuttings agencies undertaking this type of activity".

From January 2010, the licence charges will also apply to PR practitioners and "other organisations forwarding links to newspaper websites as part of their commercial activity".

The CIPR states that this will apply to "almost all newspaper websites excluding News International titles and the Financial Times".

NLA managing director David Pugh told Press Gazette that the licence was intended to apply only to organisations circulating hyperlinks to newspaper articles commercially or as a chargeable service. He said licensing will also apply to recipients of paid media monitoring services and public relations firm, as is the case with existing NLA licences.

The agency was established in 1996 by eight UK national newspaper publishers, the Press Gazette said. It represents about 1,400 national and regional publications and raises just under £20m each year for its members from around 8,000 customers. The NLA licence scheme aims to control the distribution of photocopies or electronic scans of print articles to protect the copyright entitlement of member publications. There are different levels of the licence, according to the number of employees within an organisation, the number of users, the range of member publications used, and the number of newspaper cuttings circulated.

Fees charged by the NLA range from the low hundreds of pounds for small companies to more than £50,000 for the biggest companies.

One commenter said:

Are they trying to save print or kill it? Have they really thought this through? Without the exposure on the web print sales of newspapers would be further down than they are at present. In my experience those that get mentioned on the Internet see an increase in copy sales.