UK government pens copyright deal with CLA

The UK government has agreed to simplify its licensing arrangement with a British licensing body in a move that will “save” £1.1 million ($1.8 million) a year.

Under the deal, the Cabinet Office will license material from the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) under one agreement that covers more than 90 government departments and agencies.

It allows civil servants to reproduce copyrighted digital and print material from magazines, journals and books in their line of work.

The agreement puts an end to the multiple licences and tariffs that government departments had to negotiate with the CLA, a body representing authors, publishers and visual artists.

The government said the new single annual transaction will stay in place until March 2016 and will reduce its administrative burden, “delivering savings of £1.1 million ($1.8 million) a year for hardworking tax payers”.

IP minister Lord Younger said the licence not only represents “good value for money” for the government and taxpayer, “it also ensures that rights holders are properly remunerated for the use of their work”.

He added: “The licence demonstrates that government continues to be committed to supporting the creative economy by reimbursing rights holders fairly for the use of their work. The move is in line with the government’s recommendations in the Hargreaves Review to simplify the licensing process for copyright users in the digital age, and joins other single sector licences which exist for National Health Service (NHS) England and for English schools.”

Along with indicating a general desire to reduce government spending, the deal demonstrates a desire by collecting societies to streamline and simplify the licensing process, said Sacha Wilson, associate at Bristows LLP.

He added: “The government said the deal is in line with the recommendations in the Hargreaves review. It does speak about the simplification of the licensing process, but Hargreaves was also very much around the digitisation of copyright licensing itself, and this government deal is not indicative of much progress in that area.”

Wilson said he welcomed the removal of the “sub-optimal process” in which individual government departments negotiate separate licences from the CLA, “which doesn’t work as effectively”.

“It’s so much more efficient and cost effective, especially if you can negotiate a bulk deal ... but any cost reduction in licensing fees will be potentially felt by rights holders,” he said.

Along with central and local government bodies, the NHS and schools are other CLA licensees.