Newspaper Licensing Ireland

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can. (February 2008)
This article may not meet the notability guidelines for companies and organizations. If you are familiar with the subject matter, please expand or rewrite the article to establish its notability. The best way to address this concern is to reference published, third-party sources about the subject. If notability cannot be established, the article is more likely to be considered for redirection, merge or ultimately deletion, per Wikipedia:Guide to deletion.
This article has been tagged since February 2008.

Newspaper Licensing Ireland Ltd (NLI) is the organization in the Republic of Ireland with responsibility for issuing licenses to allow copying and distribution of copyright material from print sources such as Irish newspapers and magazines. It is a not-for-profit organisation and is a member of the Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations (IFRRO). For many, it is seen as the print equivalent of the Music Rights Organization (IMRO), the organization responsible for licensing and collection of royalties for music within Ireland.

Contents

[edit] History

The establishment of NLI was prompted by the increasing number of companies that use press cuttings to share relevant information with employees, clients or customers. Newspaper articles are photocopied or scanned, then passed around or published on an intranet or website. The organization was set up in May 2002 as a result in changes to Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000 which allow publishers to protect their copyright in their publications.

However, photocopying or scanning a newspaper and sending those copies to other people, (even internally to colleagues) is seen by the newspapers to be a breach of that newspaper’s copyright.

[edit] Organization Board Structure

The NLI operates with 3 board members - 2 executive directors and 1 non-executive director who is appointed by the National Newspapers of Ireland, another non-profit organisation representing Daily, Sunday and National Weekly newspapers sold in Ireland.

[edit] Members

The members of the NLI are drawn from the various companies involved in the printing industry in Ireland. There are a total of 19 publishers associations. 9 of these are publishers of Irish National Newspapers and are full members of the National Newpapers of Ireland (NNI), and the remaining 10 are publishers of Irish Regional Newspapers.

[edit] Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000

Copyright is a cornerstone of the publishing world. It compensates publishers for the time and money they invest in preparing and producing newspaper editorial. Copyright gives the owners the exclusive rights to: copy the work; issue copies to the public; transfer any such rights to others; and be identified as the author of the work.

In Ireland, the Copyright & Related Rights Act (2000) states that publishers own the works contained in the published editions of their newspaper. In other words, employers own the works of their employees. Under this act, publishers also have the right to resell and licence the copying of newspaper content.

[edit] Licenses

Even though the organization is authorised to be set up to grant licenses under section 39 of the Copyright & Related Rights Act (2000), it should be noted that the licensing system itself is voluntary and operates under civil law without any backup under Copyright law.

[edit] External links