News aggregation site NewsNow, which links to the latest stories from a range of online publications around the world, is to drop links to major UK newspapers from its subscription service, after reaching a stalemate with the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA) over licensing fees. But should it pay to link? Or have UK papers just lost themselves a chunk of traffic?
News aggregator sites have become a point of contention for increasingly irate newspaper publishers. Sites such as NewsNow link to stories with a headline and nothing more, but the NLA believes this is enough to require a license, at least for the tailored feeds NewsNow offers from £75 per month. The paid for feeds are often used by companies to monitor relevant industries, or their own press coverage.
Google: newspapers behind payrolls could disappear
The company will cease to link its subscription feeds to the sites the NLA represents, including the Mirror Group, Telegraph, Express, Guardian and Independent, after it was given an ultimatum to sign up to the NLA’s Web Database Licence or face legal action.
Struan Bartlett, MD of NewsNow, said the decision was made despite NewsNow believing it was doing nothing wrong in charging for its linking service. “In spite of the NLA’s claims to the contrary, we continue to maintain that what they are demanding of ourselves and our customers is unacceptable and of questionable legitimacy,” he said.
“We see this as a ‘slippery slope’ towards any free-to-access website demanding licence fees from any organisation for circulating or clicking on links.”
If you’re a NewsNow subscriber, don’t worry about us disappearing from your feed though. Electricpig stories will still be appearing on NewsNow.
Out TBC | £TBC | NewsNow (Via SourceWire)
