A series of rulings in UK courts of late is showing that UK copyright law is sadly out of sync with today’s society and renders the innocent acts of millions of UK citizens illegal.
According to UK courts, tweeting a headline or emailing a colleague a link to an online news article is a breach of copyright if it is done without a copyright licence. The simple act of browsing the Internet is deemed a potential copyright infringement unless licensed. More details can be found in my commentary on recent rulings in the UK High Court and the UK Court of appeal.
The latest development in the UK is today’s ruling in the Copyright Tribunal. In 2010 Meltwater brought the Newspaper Licensing Association (NLA), a for-profit company owned by 1300 UK newspapers, to court because Meltwater found its proposed new licensing scheme for online news unreasonable and prejudiced our customers.
The good news is that the Copyright Tribunal slashed the fees proposed by the NLA by 90 per cent over the next 3 years. In our estimates this represents more than £100 million in savings over a 3-year period for UK businesses.
The bad news is that business users still need to sign a license and pay royalties for receiving links and headlines to news that they themselves can find freely available online. This applies to clients of all news monitoring services in the UK including Google. During the court hearings, the NLA stated that they are mandated next to license UK business users of Google News and that they intend to do so.
The ugly side of this ruling is that Internet as we know it is under threat. Reading and sharing content in the UK is no longer a worry-free occupation. Reading and sharing content online is from now subject to potential licensing and royalty.
The UK has become a hostile environment for Internet users and Internet businesses. Its copyright law is on collision course with daily behavior of millions of UK citizens. Restrictions on reading and sharing content is a serious assault on fundamental Internet principles as well as principles for free speech.
The Copyright Tribunal addressed only the case of business clients of online news monitoring services, but it sends a chilling warning to anyone who shares online links whether manually or by automatic algorithms. Such restrictions will unquestionably handicap UK innovations and job creation in the digital sector.
The current state of UK copyright law is very sad. It is an ugly monument to outdated legal institutions and desperate measures of a struggling newspaper industry.
The UK is not served with its current copyright law and it will inevitably be revised. The UK copyright law will in time crumble under the tide of the Internet.
At Meltwater, we have spent a lot of effort, time, and money to fight the case for our clients. Our next stop is the Supreme Court. The principle to be ruled upon there is whether the mere fact of browsing the Internet can be a copyright infringement. Pretty absurd I know, but currently the UK courts insist it is. We disagree.
Meltwater is proud to have taken on this fight. It started out as a fight on behalf of our clients. Involuntarily we ended up together with our friends at PRCA being the only ones to challenge the NLA and the current UK copyright law. As a Norwegian start-up we find that a bit puzzling, but we are hanging in there because we believe these principles are too important to throw in the towel. We are grateful for the support we have received so far and hope for continued support as the fight continues.
