FT Takes More Digital Control: Brings E-Clippings Under Its Own License

The Financial Times took another step today in bringing more of its digital content directly under its control. The newspaper said it will be taking over all licensing of digital clips of its newspaper articles, effective July 1 of this year. These clips, which typically come in PDF form, are currently licensed by the Newspaper Licensing Agency.

The FT says the move will give its corporate customers a more simplified experience when paying for content. “Our intention is to bring all digital access rights into one licence. We want to ensure transparency of pricing and consistency so that our customers pay once to access Financial Times journalism and the price is independent of the platform used to access,” said Caspar de Bono, MD for B2B at the FT, in an e-mailed release.

The FT says that it is now opening a period of consultation with its customers before the changeover. Those who already hold NLA licenses will be able to access FT digital clippings until their licenses expire, when they will need to get a new license directly with the FT in order to have access, regardless of whether they ultimately use the clippings directly from the paper or via a third party.

David Pugh, MD of NLA, tells us that the NLA will continue to license printed clippings from the FT, which is one of the founding shareholders of the organization. The NLA from this month began extending its newspaper licensing services to cover web content but has met some controversy over the move: news aggregator Meltwater, has taken the NLA to the Copyright Tribunal over the issue. Meanwhile, the FT will be launching a “day pass” to its site, in addition to its annual subscriptions, but it is ruling out payments for individual articles for now.

The PDFs will as of July 1 become part of a license agreement that the FT makes directly with organisations. Other areas covered in the license include access to FT.com articles, media monitoring, press cutting agencies and news aggregation services. They have been licensing directly for digital since 2008, says Pugh.

The move could also be part of a bigger strategy to promote FT.com. In December, the FT added three extra features for subscribers to sweeten the deal: a monthly newsletter from the editor, Lionel Barber; a Friday email called “Newsmine” that picks up “hidden nuggets” from FT stories; and an ePaper version of the printed edition. Now, to this will also be added digital clippings of the FT newspaper, which will be free to subscribers of FT.com. The FT also plans to make the clippings free of charge for a limited time on its site to all visitors, subscribers or not. Annual FT.com subscriptions currently cost £260 for a premium service and £170 for the standard service. Corporate licenses are available from £221 per user.

In December the FT said that it had 121,000 paying subscribers for FT.com.

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