With the means of publishing news shifting from print to the Internet there are new challenges to copyright, no doubt ultimately motivated by the value attributed to content and how access is charged or funded. But while few b-2-b businesses will be selling news through their own newspapers, magazines or web sites, legal rulings on copyright could still have an impact on what they can do. While major organisations challenge copyright laws to publish books online, copying news published about the company itself, providing links, headlines and extracts is also coming under the scrutiny of organisations seeking to extract a licensing fee.
Related to this is the concept of subscribing to news resources. We have become used to free access to news online and the rise of free newspapers. Recently the London Evening Standard decided to become a free newspaper with the result that the existing free circulation evening papers folded. Meanwhile reacting to declining advertising revenues News International outlined proposals to charge for access to their news web sites. So the business models are being revisited. The issues surrounding copyright of news has also recently been highlighted by the aggressive sales methods adopted by an organisation operating on behalf of newspapers publishers and pursuing b-2-b companies to take up licenses.
From the other end of the news process consider how most businesses create news. In short the news item is written by the company itself, or by a PR agency acting on their behalf and issued as press releases or articles that are submitted to journals for consideration to publish. Few trade journals actually employ journalists to write content, but use managing editors who fill a large part of the editorial content selected from press releases. So the company or PR agency may feel they retain ownership of the copyright especially if they pay for publication, which is increasingly the case. Providing copies of published news as a service to clients might therefore seem entirely reasonable. But it is in this very area where demands for a license to do so are being made. The Newspaper Licensing Agency advises that PR agencies providing press clippings to their client require a license to do this. Furthermore access via web links appears to fall within the scope as well. Not surprisingly this has given rise to debate within the PR and indeed wider web community, right up to the likes of search engines that pick up and publish extracts from online news in the search results and also of course provide links. Expect to hear more about this complex subject.
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