Nla on Philip Sheldrake

UK businesses will have to pay a UK media license – Copyright Tribunal implications

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Yes, you read the title to this post right. Are you in business? In the UK? Online or use email? Then you apparently owe the Newspaper Licensing Agency some money.

I first expressed my interest in an increasingly aggressive Newspaper Licensing Agency in a 2007 blog post suggesting a more appropriate title for the body – Newspaper Licensing Anachronism. Please note that I have nothing against the monetization of copyright content (hey I’m an author!), I just think the way the NLA conducts its business is all rather 20th Century. And this week, we’ve had a Copyright Tribunal Interim Decision . [The square brackets below reference this decision.]

The NLA’s relevance in the 21st Century has been tested, as far as the law is open to interpretation, by the innovative media monitoring company, Meltwater . Actually, the description the Copyright Tribunal uses to describe Meltwater, or rather Meltwater’s witness, is “unnecessarily combative” [35]. Well, talking of combat, the latest battle in this war concluded yesterday.

The result is a mixed affair, with neither the NLA or Meltwater coming out on top. I’ve just recorded an interesting conversation with Meltwater’s JP Glittenberg about this week’s decision… do take a listen, particularly if you work in media, PR or copyright.

[audio:https://philipsheldrake.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Meltwater-interview-15Feb2012.mp3|titles=Meltwater interview 15th Feb 2012]

Now the Tribunal is quite restricted: by law; by precedent; by previous adjudgements in this ongoing case; by its own terms of reference. Generally, on reading the entire 60-page decision, I find the Tribunal to be most diligent, but given my background, I get a bit uptight every time I read something that indicates a lack of technical understanding of the Internet and the World Wide Web (yes, they are different things!)

Despite some stumbles however, they get somewhere interesting in the end. In fact, they end up showing up UK copyright law for the shambles it is.

Don't forward. That could be illegal.

Sat, 30 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s how The Independent reports on this week’s Appeal Court decision to uphold the High Court’s decision that customers of media monitoring services – which provide digests of news from websites run by newspapers – need licences from the publications involved, in order to avoid breaching their copyright.

And as much as this might surprise anyone who thought they knew that the Web is made up of web pages with unique addresses that anyone can forward, share, bookmark, embed and access – I’m afraid you’re wrong. In fact, I may have broken UK law by including the link to The Independent article without having bought a license from the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA ).

[Note to non-UK resident readers: This situation is acutely embarrassing for us Brits and I’d appreciate it if you kept this quiet. After all, our current coalition government really wants the rest of the world to think we ‘get’ digital.]

You see the trouble is the Court’s are dealing with horse and cart in the age of the automobile. The government commissioned May 2011 review of the state of UK intellectual property law, the Hargreave’s report , concludes that laws designed more than three centuries ago with the express purpose of creating economic incentives for innovation by protecting creators’ rights are today obstructing innovation and economic growth. An unequivocal conclusion if ever there was one.

Friday Roundup - the NLA and copyright

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I have always admired the UK’s Newspaper Licensing Agency for its self-assured composure in freshly applying last century’s rules to this one.

That’s a repeat of the opening sentence to a blog post of mine from 2007. And in the last couple of weeks the NLA appears to just get sillier and sillier and less and less in tune with how the world works today. They have announced their imminent intention to begin charging agencies and clients for sending URLs to each other.

Yes, you did read that right. I can assure you, that is the case, and no laughing please from those of you outside of the UK!

NLA, Agency or Anachronism?

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I have always admired the UK’s Newspaper Licensing Agency for its self-assured composure in freshly applying last century’s rules to this one. Now I know rules don’t just expire, but equally, they don’t just stay relevant untouched, and the legal underpin for the NLA’s stance surely demands review. If 2007 marks the year music companies reviewed their attitude toward digital rights management, then it’s time the NLA got real too.