Today marked the end of a long road for the Newspaper Licensing Agency and Meltwater and the PRCA’s court battle over newspaper licensing in the UK.

You watch a film on LoveFilm or Netflix or iTunes. You pay for the service. Imagine, if iTunes was not, in turn, paying the copyright owner for the right to air that content. News, while free on many newspapers websites is licensed to the end user on the basis that it will either not be used for commercial purposes or that a fee will be imposed for those who do use it in that context.

The Supreme Court ruled largely in favour of Meltwater and the PRCA, in that the temporary copies created when content is viewed online is not infringing upon copyright. The Supreme Court, however referred the final decision regarding the ability of media monitoring agencies to charge for services to deliver links to online news to the European Court of Justice (CJEU).

The ruling follows a Court of Appeals decision in that media monitoring services must pay a licence fee to the copyright owner. Currently, the end user of online news is liable for using the content in either a non-commercial manner or paying the NLA for the right to do so.

Lord Jonathan Sumption says, “If merely viewing a web-page is not an infringement, that does not leave the copyright owner without effective remedies against pirates. It simply means that his remedy must be found against others who on the face of it are more obviously at fault.”

The Meltwater/PRCA side of the case argues that those who view content online are not infringing upon copyright, a matter that is technically reinforced by previous legislation and the complexities of online web end-user licences.

“In many ways we are now bringing the legal system up to speed with technical development,” Meltwater CEO Jorn Lyssegen says. “The essence of this ruling is in the same way that reading a book is not copyright infringement, in the same way that watching a movie on television is not copyright infringement, in the same way that reading news online, that is not copyright infringement.”

Though the Supreme Court judgement determines the course of action within the UK, the case will proceed within the next 12-18 months to the CJEU for a Europe-wide decision.

The court has said that Meltwater need a license and it might be better if the NLA took the licences from Meltwater rather than required the end user to have a licence,” Andrew Hughes, commerical director at the NLA, says. “At the principle level we think people making commercial use of this content should obviously pay a licence.”

The PRCA and Meltwater remain optimistic that the CJEU result will be consistent with that of the Supreme Court. Sumption’s ruling put strong emphasis on the precedent of two CJEU cases in which the temporary copying of copyrighted materials is not in violation of copyright law.

PRCA director general Francis Ingham says, “It’s been a long process but we’re extremely happy. The Supreme Court disagrees with the NLA in all five areas. That is the ideal outcome because now we’re going to clarify the whole thing on the European level.”

While the case has significant implications for PR practitioners who use services like Meltwater’s to obtain links to online news based on search and keywords, it also has a potential impact on internet users Europe-wide. The question of whether everyday users browsing for content are infringing upon the copyright of that content has been alluded to in both legal precedent and Sumption’s ruling in this case. However, users are protected allowing that they comply with the non-commerical terms of use that newspapers and other copyright owners set out.

Ingham says, “Our view has always been that if the newspapers think their current model doesn’t work for them financially, then they can just put everything behind a paywall. But what they can’t do is have content freely available in the public domain but that if you were sent a web link that somehow you owe them a bill.”