The Newspaper Licensing Authority’s (NLA’s) plans to introduce a web clipping licence in January 2010 has stirred up a great deal of debate among PR professionals, many of whom feel they are being asked to pay for passing on online content to their clients, that previously they would have passed on as a matter of course, for no charge. The NLA defends its proposals, saying that it is not charging for links, but is extending its licences to cover the intellectual property published on newspapers’ websites.

David Pugh, managing director of NLA, says that the NLA’s web initiative has two objectives – to encourage web monitoring and to ensure that newspaper publishers are rewarded as use of their content grows. He adds: “We have had extensive dialogue with stakeholders on this initiative and this has shaped the design and timings of the new licences and eClips Web Service. During our extensive consultation and discussion with PR clients, we have found that – contrary to some coverage – there is a good understanding of and sympathy with our objectives.

They are interested in monitoring newspaper web content, want the monitoring to be improved and respect the need for effective licensing that removes uncertainty over compliance.” Pugh points out that the web licences have been developed so that monitoring companies who sell paid-for services created by copying newspaper website content pay a fair share of the substantial revenues they generate to the content owners. He adds: “Most monitoring companies are in discussions with the NLA to agree their licences.”

However, it seems many PROs, and their professional bodies, are failing to be convinced by these arguments. President of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), Kevin Taylor, says that the CIPR is “fundamentally opposed” to the levying of individual fees to its members who, through passing online newspaper links to their clients, could also be forwarding potential customers to a newspaper website. He adds: “We also take issue with the lack of fairness in how this new tax will be applied. While charges will be imposed on smaller businesses, local authorities and others, those with the means to put up a strong legal fight, like Google, are exempt.” Taylor says that although the CIPR will advise members on how to comply with the new regulations, should they go ahead, the CIPR will also, “advise on methods they can adopt to minimise charges.” Taylor also adds that the CIPR has made its own and its members objections to the proposals abundantly clear both in public and directly to the NLA.

Clients won’t pay
The NLA has obviously been forced to spend a lot of time defending its proposals, and agencies still have plenty of time to prepare themselves for the web content licensing changes. But as Julie Price, PR director at PR consultancy Seal, points out: “It’s not the timing, but the actual costs that concerns many agencies.” She echoes many other PR professionals who are complaining that this scheme may provide a lucrative revenue stream for the NLA, but it is hard for PR agencies to pass the additional outlay on to cost-conscious clients, and as a result it is the PR firms that are having to absorb the expense. Price adds: “In a recent email from the NLA to announce the changes, agencies were informed ‘actual fees will depend on volumes, allowing you to manage costs.’ Excellent news? The less online news coverage achieved, the less we pay – but surely this is counter productive and not an effective way to manage budgets?” Price says that
licensing is a difficult area to explain to clients, and that the new fees are potentially putting up another barrier “to providing a receipt of our work.“ She adds, “It has huge financial implications for professional web-monitoring agencies, as hard-pressed agencies revert back to Google Alerts to capture online coverage.”

Price also complains that PR agencies are “at the mercy of the NLA”. She appreciates that the news industry is experiencing tough times, losing revenue and as a result staff, but points out that “agencies like ours provide an increasing amount of free content for both print and online newspapers.”The NLA claims, however, that some of the costs discussed are exaggerated. Many companies with an NLA licence (over 180,000 at the last count) will pay no additional costs to monitor web content themselves. Those companies or organisations which use a paid web media monitoring service (about 3,000) will need to buy the new licence. These royalties start at £58 per annum; only the very largest companies making the heaviest use of paid services will pay more than £1,000 a year. Smaller users pay less, and larger ones more.

Join the campaign
Stephen Waddington, managing director of PR agency Speed, has been stirring up the debate about the NLA’s proposals on Twitter, where there is also a Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA) Twitter petition for the NLA to scrap these new charges. Waddington has also blogged extensively about the subject.  He says that one of the problems is caused by the NLA not adequately making clear how the new license works, leading to the PR industry becoming fixated with the idea that URLs should not be licensed. He explains: “This issue is not about licensing URLs; the PR industry has jumped on this headline because the NLA has failed to properly explain the issues that its members face, and the rationale of the new licence."

"The legal argument of commercial versus non-commercial use of web content is sound and the licence stacks up in the context of the social web. If you are scrapping or recording content from a website and not providing links back, you should expect different terms from social web users.”

Waddington believes the problem is that the NLA is attempting to create a licence model too late, and attempting to fit it to a structure that is too large and complex. He says: "Retrofitting a licensing model on an open network is flawed and fraught with loopholes. For example, the NLA isn't pursuing Google because it claims Google News is not a genuine substitute for a professional media monitoring service, yet in my experience it is the PR industry's frontline web clipping service.”

Waddington states that self-certification combined with ad hoc audits is the only way that the NLA will be able to enforce the new licensing fee. He concludes: “The web licence will go ahead but technology will ultimately dictate the conclusion of this debate."

For full details of the new licensing scheme, see the NLA website.