The Newspaper Licensing Agency has put its new 'links licence' on hold pending a Copyright Tribunal ruling.
As previously reported, the NLA, which traditionally provides licenses to companies who want to frequently photocopy newspaper articles for commercial reasons (so clippings agencies and PR departments and consultancies tracking media coverage of companies), last year announced its plan to licence those companies who now provide links to online versions of articles rather than physical copies, as has become the trend in the media relations sector in recent years.
The announcement was controversial because most of the companies providing such links deny they need to be licensed. They argue that because no actual copies of any articles are made when links are provided, copyright issues are irrelevant, and therefore so are licensing concerns. As also previously reported, last month media monitors Meltwater announced they would take the NLA to the UK's Copyright Tribunal - the court that considers copyright disputes - in a bid to get judicial backing for this viewpoint.
Given that action, the NLA has said it will put the introduction of the new links licence on hold, and will not bill those agencies providing commercial link services.
Some argue that the proposed link licence is especially unwarranted given plans by many newspaper owners to put the bulk of their content behind 'pay walls'. This would mean that companies receiving link lists from commercial link providers would have to have active subscriptions to see the content linked to, meaning newspaper owners would be receiving due payment from those accessing their content anyways.
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