News aggregator pulls national newspaper links in row with NLA

Posted by Press Gazette on 15 December 2009 at 08:22
Tags: Journalism, National Newspapers, New Media, Online

A company which claims to be the UK’s biggest home-grown news aggregator, second only to Google News, has dropped national newspaper links from its subscription service in a row over licensing.

Newsnow, which claims to attract two million unique users a month, is refusing to sign a deal with the Newspaper Licensing Agency which would see it pay for the right to aggregate headlines. Newsnow says it is not just unhappy about the charges, but says the license is “not fit for purpose”.

Under the deal, Newsnow’s subscription clients would also be charged for circulating links to headlines within their organisations.

It will be interesting to see if the NLA is now brave enough to take on the top news aggregator, Google News.

Full press release from Newsnow here.

Tags: Journalism, National Newspapers, New Media, Online