The UK’s Court of Appeal has ruled newspapers should be paid by news monitoring agencies that use their online content, upholding a previous ruling against news aggregator Meltwater that said users of the service would require a Newspaper Licensing Authority license.
Lord Justice Jackson upheld a previous ruling against news aggregator Meltwater, which said users of the service would require a licence from the Newspaper Licensing Authority (NLA).
In November last year, the High Court ruled that headlines could be considered separate literary works, and thus subject to copyright. The ruling meant that clients of aggregation services that charge for a service would have to pay for a licence. Meltwater appealed the ruling, with the support of the Public Relations Consultants Association.
NLA managing director David Pugh said: “The Court of Appeal has today unequivocally confirmed the ruling of the High Court that online newspapers are copyright protected. It has given a clear declaration that most (if not all) businesses subscribing to a media monitoring service that contains content from online newspapers require a licence.”
Meltwater CEO Jorn Lyseggen responded: “The ability to browse the internet without fear of infringing copyright is a fundamental internet principle. Society is not served by this ruling.”
He said that Meltwater would seek permission to appeal part of the decision in the Supreme Court.