Rush to take out licences following legal action for infringement
Local authorities have rushed to take out copyright licences following legal action for infringement earlier this year.
In April, the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) reached agreement with Brighton and Hove City Council after gathering evidence that the council’s “no copying” policy had not worked and infringement was taking place. The council agreed to pay an undisclosed sum to cover legal costs and retrospective licence fees as well as agreeing to take a licence for the future.
A further 19 other councils have since taken a copyright licence.
Martin Delaney, CLA’s legal director, says: “I am pleased to see that councils are recognising their legal requirement for a CLA licence.
“This will help us to protect the UK creative industries, worth more than £36.2bn to the UK economy. All of CLA’s licensed councils are surveyed on a rolling program and our data shows that copying is widespread during the course of day-to-day activities. There is no reason to doubt that these practices occur in all of the remaining unlicensed local authorities as well.”
The CLA licenses organisations to copy from digital and print publications on behalf of the copyright owners—authors, publishers and visual artists. It monitors councils where it is believed that infringement is taking place and investigates reports of infringement in the workplace provided by individuals. Officers and employees can, in some cases, be held individually liable for infringements.
Currently, 140 of 450 UK councils remain unlicensed when it is likely they are copying from digital and print publications covered by CLA.
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