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CharityComms calls for charity exemption from media licensing

Fundraising | Vibeka Mair | 17 Jan 2012

CharityComms has launched a campaign to have charities exempted from the media licensing system, which charges the voluntary sector around £1.3m a year.

CharityComms, which is a membership body for charity communication professionals, says the media licensing system, overseen by the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA) places an unfair burden on charities’ resources. It estimates that over 1,000 charities are being charged a combined £1.3m annually for copying media stories.

Its campaign stems from research which reveals that a vast majority (82 per cent) of newspaper stories copied by charities are stories that the charities themselves have generated, and are largely lifted from the charity’s own press release.

CharityComms director Vicky Browning said: “Charities are not profit-making businesses, and they do not monitor the press for any commercial gain. What’s more, the resources, both money and time, spent on NLA licences divert those resources from the important charitable work that donors expect to be funding.”

NLA response

In response, NLA's managing director David Pugh said all organisations got equal value from its services:

"Businesses, charities and local authorities are different types of organisations. But, in common, they all get value from newspaper content. That's what we licence and charge for."

CharityComms is also concerned about NLA’s fees which range from £7,000 annually for large organisations to £1 per article copied for smaller ones. The charity discount from NLA is a flat £158.

Pugh said NLA's current fee structure was arrived at in consultation with NCVO in 2003.

But, he said as nine years had passed since, it would not be a bad time to review the arrangements:

"We became aware of CharityComms' research before Christmas," he said, "and met them. We have now subsequently invited them to meet our licensing team."

Pugh also said that charities with less than five employees, and a turnover of £250,000 or less were exempt from paying the licence fee.

CharityComms also found that respondents to its survey, which involved some 600 charities, felt that NLA’s approach was often “heavy-handed and intimidating”.

Pugh said NLA's customer service team was monitored each month and the organisation was constantly refreshing its training.

Digital extension

In addition, CharityComms fears that a possible NLA extension to digital use would mean an even greater burden on charities, as half share more than 90 per cent of media cuttings via email.

A spokeswoman said: “While individuals are encouraged to circulate online articles, if the NLA gets its way charities will soon be charged for this. We dispute the claim that charities’ media monitoring is a ‘commercial’ activity, and believe the unique role of charities’ should allow them exemption from this fee."

The Newspaper Licensing Agency, founded in 1996, is a private company owned by eight equal shareholders, each a UK national newspaper publisher: Associated Newspapers; Financial Times; Guardian Media Group; Independent News and Media; Northern and Shell; News International; Daily Telegraph; Trinity Mirror. Each year the NLA distributes approximately £22m to national and regional newspapers in respect of copyright works.

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