Irish Charity Told It Needs To Pay A License Fee To Link To A Newspaper Article

from the uh,-no dept

Wed, May 30th 2012 11:31pm — Mike Masnick

Via Mathew Ingram we learn of a ridiculous situation in Ireland, where the organization "Newspaper Licensing Ireland" has sent an email to the Women's Aid charity, telling it that linking to newspaper websites without a license is copyright infringement:

"a licence is required to link directly to an online article even without uploading any of the content directly onto your own website"

The lawyer representing Women's Aid smartly posted its own reply publicly asking NLI to "specify the statutory basis of this claim." It also notes the pricelist, including the fact that NLI seems to think that linking to between one and five articles requires €300 annually. Furthermore, the letter notes the terms of service on various news websites that allow linking -- even though this is really besides the point, since copyright law does not forbid linking in the first place.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: ireland, licensing, linking, women's aid
Companies: newspaper licensing ireland

41 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

That Anonymous Coward (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 11:52pm

Righthaven.ie
[ link to this | view in thread ]
PaulT (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 12:31am

I wish there was something to stop people claiming "copyright infringement" as though that justifies shakedown tactics and removal of private property, and the other things people seem to try. Perhaps that's why their targeting poorer organisations like charities who can't afford adequate legal advice to bring charges.

Surely, if they're sending out these kinds of demands without there actually being a legal requirement, it should count as at least fraud, if not something worse? If there's no legal basis behind the initial threat, it's nothing more than a protection racket.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2012 @ 12:56am

Does it not occur to these vampire organizations that the public hears of these behind the door operations? I don't know about you but I've come to realize that these enforcement operations have reached new lows. Lows that I won't support, either with money in paying for items nor with favoritism when it comes time that they are once again asking for new laws.

In the case of those like the BSA, RIAA, MPAA, ad nauseum, I can not wait to see these organizations drain their parent companies into bankruptcy. It simply can not happen fast enough. I for one will dance the day the last one goes under.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
G Thompson (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 12:56am

Has anyone read this idiotic Licensing firms FAQ?

I quote: (via http://www.newspaperlicensing.ie/v2/faq.php )
Q: We don�t photocopy and/or scan information from these newspapers
A: If your organisation does not photocopy and/or scan any information from any of the member titles listed above, we would ask you to sign a declaration form affixing your company stamp and return to Newspaper Licensing Ireland Limited, Clyde Lodge, 15 Clyde Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4.[emphasis added]
Click here to download the declaration form.

(Note: declaration form pdf link included on original)

OMG!

Anyone who signs that so called 'declaration' (which also has very ambiguous wording) is not only going to be on NLI's radar of who to look for, but is a big huge sign on the companies data saying "look at us we can be easily scammed"

TAC states they might be the Righthaven of Eire, Seeing as how they actually state on their FAQ that "We are in the process of contacting organisations located within the Republic of Ireland who do not have a current licence to photocopy and/or scan sections or cuttings from our member titles as listed above." this leads one to think that they are going above and beyond even what Righthaven was doing.

The appropriate response to these fools is not only the snark that was in the reply by the solicitors on behalf of the Womens Group, but in the words of Ken @ Popehat

"Snort my taint!"
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2012 @ 1:02am

Re:
Copyright scope creep on steroids, complete with roid rage.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Rikuo (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 1:04am

Re:
"Q: We don�t photocopy and/or scan information from these newspapers
A: If your organisation does not photocopy and/or scan any information from any of the member titles listed above, we would ask you to sign a declaration form affixing your company stamp and return to Newspaper Licensing Ireland Limited, Clyde Lodge, 15 Clyde Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4.[emphasis added]"

So...anyone NOT photocopying and/or scanning information has to sign a declaration form. As in...EVERYONE ELSE ON THE PLANET?
I thought declaration forms were only for things you intended to do, not to state things you don't do.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Beech, 31 May 2012 @ 1:21am

Clicked the link in comment #4, turns out NLI has a nice handy "contact us" section. pick a company name, contact name, email address, and you can send them a message! Maybe everyone should hop on that and let them know what the people think of them...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Vic (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 1:49am

So really the paper in question does not want anyone to promote their articles online, meaning they do not want any more readers online... Perhaps we should tell their advertisers...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Vic (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 1:53am

Re:
MMM... ok never mind... maybe they do not realise that this is happening...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
That Anonymous Coward (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 2:04am

Re: Re:
The papers were told your being robbed blind, and we'll get the money from the filthy pirates for you.

And now they will reap what they sowed. Not being bright enough to ask what they do, and how they do it and just signing on the dotted line to get paid.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2012 @ 2:11am

'since copyright law does not forbid linking in the first place.' why have people like O'Dwyer been charged with copyright infringement when he only had links on his website? why is TPB blocked due to actions by companies like BREIN (acting on behalf of the entertainment industries), when all they have are links on their website? perhaps the 'copyright law does not forbid linking' statement is extremely selective?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2012 @ 2:13am

Newsflash, if you turn a product into shit, people will stop using shit product.

When you break an already working, bought for, USED, product, you can bet your life your gonna have pissed of people when you change how we can use said product, because of stupid business orientated SHIT
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2012 @ 2:43am

Re: Re:
That was my take on it. Fun project: Get everyone you can to download that form, print it, sign it (not necessarily with their legal name) and mail it to the company.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2012 @ 2:49am

Re: Re: Re:
It's like a physical DDOS.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2012 @ 2:52am

They need to grow the fuck up... Their website is public domain. If she was posting alt links to ripped copies of the website then yeah they could and should be pissed but not when someone is telling others about the site. I would continue to link and if they wanted me to stop it would be simple.

Make the fucking website a pay site members only. Then it would actually be a little more justified to bitch about it."Not much but still"
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2012 @ 3:04am

This is the result of the moronic war on linking websites like the Pirate Bay, you see after one judge said linking can be infringing all the other people thought it is open day for linking.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
That Anonymous Coward (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 3:41am

Re:
O'Dwyer is another head on a pike for the cartels.
TPB is a huge target so any dents they can make will "scare" people away... like when they got them blocked and there was a huge surge in traffic as it was the best advertising for TPB.

These are just pawns in a game, where irrelevant gatekeepers keep flailing claiming it is an outside force killing them dead not their total denial that the world changed and they didn't keep up. They want to force people to go backwards and not find new ways to do things until the gatekeepers figure out how to keep making the same money when their actual costs keep dropping.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Ninja (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 3:52am

And they want ppl to respect copyright. Right.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Ruud (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 4:01am

As pointed out by the lawyers, each of these articles come with an array of buttons to share them on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and lots of other services. Clicking any of them would require you to pay fees to Newspaper Licensing Ireland. Such a clever way to save the dead tree media.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Richard (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 4:25am

Re:
'since copyright law does not forbid linking in the first place.' why have people like O'Dwyer been charged with copyright infringement when he only had links on his website?

Thank you for displaying publicly the fact that you are brain dead!

The case you referred to concerned linking to infringing material.

Here we are discussing linking to non-infringing (but copyrighted) material.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
lol, 31 May 2012 @ 4:40am

does not compute
This seems like a good move to make everyone else remove any link to your website, which only makes sense if your goal is to disappear from the web. It's not even economically viable, your hurting your traffic, diminishing ad-revenue for a measly 300$ / year?

If I were the charity site, I'd link to a google 'I feel lucky' search which results in the linked page to open, no 300$ for them unless they tell google to remove their link.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2012 @ 4:48am

What mental gymnastics does one need to perform in order to not see such cases as anything but attempted extortion?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
DannyB (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 6:16am

They don't go far enough
Not only should others have to pay to link to their newspaper, but others should have to pay to:

* talk about their paper
* display their paper on a newsstand
* have the privilege of transmitting content of their paper to end user browsers
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2012 @ 6:25am

Re:
"Clicked the link in comment #4, turns out NLI has a nice handy "contact us" section. pick a company name, contact name, email address, and you can send them a message! Maybe everyone should hop on that and let them know what the people think of them..."

Done!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2012 @ 6:31am

Didn't your mother every tell you it is not polite to link, er, point.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
BentFranklin (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 6:37am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Save a stamp and fax it to: 01 668 9872
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2012 @ 6:43am

Re:
Did you pay a license to link to their site's licensing faq?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Leigh Beadon (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 6:50am

Re:
Well, their website is certainly not public domain - but yes it is definitely public, which I think is what you meant. And yeah it's insane to claim infringement over linking to something public.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2012 @ 7:34am

Way ahead of ya Ireland. In Denmark and Sweden it has been illegal to deep link "copyrighted material" since 2000/2001. (Yes, the cases were about illegal mp3's, but the rulings saw the linking as a separate crime.) These rulings have later been confirmed by cases about links to newspaper articles.

Many media in Denmark are lax about it and will let "personal private use" be legal while "commercial use" has to pay. Now we only need to know the line between those two broad terms to know if our "illegal" endevour will be overlooked by the kings of media!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Boost, 31 May 2012 @ 7:48am

Re: Re:
Oh, so every link on the internet tells you whether it's infringing on a copyright or not? I didn't know that. Thanks.

/s
[ link to this | view in thread ]
mattarse (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 9:16am

Re: Re: Re:
Ofcourse every link does, and it's easy to figure out.

All you have to do is go to a command prompt and type in nslookup followed by the website the link is hosted on.

So for google I would do:
nslookup google.com

The you take the numbers of the IP address - in my case the IP address is 209.85.148.139 and total those:
209 + 85 + 148 + 139 = 580

The higher this number is above 42, then the more likely that the sites links are infringing, and should not be clicked on. I won't personally click on any going to an IP address higher than 127.0.0.0
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2012 @ 9:20am

Re: Re:
Material cannot be infringing. Only people can. Infringement is when materials are distributed without permission, but its the act that is illegal, not the stuff itself.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2012 @ 9:23am

Re: does not compute
That gives me an idea for a new torrent site!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
DH's Love Child (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 11:22am

Re:
So, in other words, in Sweden and Denmark, they want people to pay for the privilege of promoting their newspapers? Well, that's easy, direct people to the same article on a non-Scandinavian site who will be more than happy to get the traffic necessary for the ad revenue... that's asinine!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
ken (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 11:43am

Licencing company guilty of fraud
It appears this licencing company is guilty of fraud by requesting payment where they are not entitled and are simply making this request in hopes that some will comply being ignorant of the law.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
ltlw0lf (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 12:32pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
The higher this number is above 42, then the more likely that the sites links are infringing, and should not be clicked on. I won't personally click on any going to an IP address higher than 127.0.0.0.

Hey...that is my IP address (127.0.0.1.) I spend most of my time there.

Oh well. Guess I am just one of those pirates after all.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
CN, 31 May 2012 @ 12:42pm

Where will it end.
I wish there was something to stop people claiming "copyright infringement" as though that justifies shakedown tactics and removal of private property

Fraud? Perhaps. How about extortion? Regardless, they are shaking down people for money with no legal basis to do so. We should start throwing people in jail over this crap. Maybe that would stop this criminal activity!

Next thing, you'll turn your head an see someone sitting next to you reading a newspaper, and someone will rush you, point a gun at your head and say "You tried to read that guy's newspaper! That's theft. Pay up!"
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Dr Evil, 31 May 2012 @ 5:23pm

pay yer fees...
obviously you guys/gals have never lived in or about the UK.
They charge a license fee for receive TV, so nothing is free there...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Dr Evil, 31 May 2012 @ 5:23pm

pay yer fees...
obviously you guys/gals have never lived in or about the UK.
They charge a license fee for receive TV, so nothing is free there...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
AMCApril (profile), 31 May 2012 @ 5:49pm

they shoudln't make them pay any money for linking
like hey
I have posted links of news from newspapers before on facebook man...

this is just stupid of them to make them pay a free >.>
[ link to this | view in thread ]
PaulT (profile), 1 Jun 2012 @ 1:04am

Re: pay yer fees...
Obviously you've never looked at a map, since you don't know that Ireland is not part of the UK...
[ link to this | view in thread ]