NLA Court of Appeal update

The PRCA Court of Appeal case with Meltwater against the NLA will be heard between 15-17 June. The Court of Appeal case deals with certain of the legal elements raised in the contract the NLA are proposing to introduce and will determine whether end users need a licence at all. Further information about the proposed licence which will apply to those wishing to receive online media monitoring reports from commercial providers can be found in the attached Q&A document. We are arguing the following points:

  • Contract - ie the newspaper terms & conditions restricting commercial use of their websites are not valid as they're buried at the bottom of the page. We believe users should have to acknowledge terms and conditions for them to be valid;
  • Temporary copying - the process of rendering on screen is an integral part of the process of using the Internet rather than the creation of a new copy equivalent to a paper copy. We believe it therefore merits an exemption from copyright legislation as a temporary copy, which we argue is just the sort of copy this exemption was designed to cover. The NLA is arguing that when you display a page, as your computer creates a cached copy in the RAM and the physical displays a webpage on screen, this is a further copy and is an infringement that does not fall within the temporary copying exception;
  • Titles - we are arguing that titles are not independent literary works. This would mean film listings or bibliographies would infringe copyright, for example;
  • Fair dealing and extracts - we are arguing that 256 character snippets are not copyrightable and that the author is sufficiently acknowledged. These snippets are similar to those produced by searches in Google and while the NLA licence is limited to commercial media monitoring organisations and users of their services, this could have wider ramifications for internet search in the future.

We expect the decision of the court in late June / early July but this is not certain and the court may indicate a different timing at the end of the hearing.

If the Court of Appeal holds that an end user licence is required we can expect the Copyright Tribunal to follow that ruling, but the Court of Appeal's deliberation will still be important as we look to improve materially the terms of any such licence, including to reduce the fees that they are proposing for end users in the Copyright Tribunal. If you have any further questions about the case please let me know.

Future of Content

Last week the NLA joined a debate we co-hosted with Meltwater on the Future of Content. Video of the keynote by Richard Sambrook, Richard Sambrook, formerly the Director of BBC News and World Service, and now Global Vice Chairman/Chief Content Officer at Edelman, and the debate are available on our website and are very much worth watching. While the NLA's plans were at the heart of many of the discussions, there was also some very exciting insight into who will generate content in the future and how we will consume it. I hope that you find it interesting.

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