How Does the Downstream Licence work with Copyright Agency’s Annual Business Licence?
Without the Downstream Licence, media monitoring organisations would only be able to communicate the press clips and online monitoring licensed by Copyright Agency to one person in an organisation. That person would only be able to read the content on their screen and not be able to do anything else with the content within their day-to-day activities.
The Downstream Licence provides a base level of copyright coverage for the content clients receive through their media monitoring service that has been licensed by Copyright Agency. It enables clients to copy and share content within their organisation.
The Annual Business Licence (ABL) builds on the base level of copyright coverage in the Downstream Licence by providing additional rights for Australian news content and the ability to use more than news media content.
Additional Rights under the ABL for use of Australian News Articles received from your Media Monitor
- Email outside of your organisation to third parties such as consultants, PR agencies, clients, shareholders etc
- Store up to 5 newspaper articles from a print newspaper or 5% of a digital edition for the life of the annual business licence.
- Make a copy of a newspaper article from the publisher’s website
- Post newspaper articles to websites, social media platforms and extranets.
- Use newspaper articles in business reports, meeting agendas and submissions.
- Use newspaper articles on an ad hoc basis to input into Generative AI platforms as prompts.
Rights for Australian News Articles not received from your Media Monitor via the ABL
If you supplement your media monitoring service using in-house media monitoring, a PR Agency or company subscriptions, the ABL also enables you to:
- Make a copy of a newspaper article
- Communicate that copy within your organisation via email, intranet or other formats
- Plus, all the “Additional Rights” listed above.
Client Sharing for PR Agencies
For PR/Media/Marketing Agencies, Copyright Agency’s ABLcan also provide an additional “Client Sharing” add on which enables you to communicate high volumes of newspaper articles to your clients, and also authorise your clients to communicate newspaper articles to you.
Major Australian News Publishers
Major Australian newspaper publishers, Australian Community Media, News Corp Australia and Nine Publishing, are no longer covered by Copyright Agency’s Downstream Licence as those publishers are licensing their rights directly to media monitoring organisations.
Those publishers remain covered by Copyright Agency’s ABL, so all the rights listed above also apply to articles from those publishers.
Annual Business Licence Is More Than News
The ABL is a blanket licence across all of Copyright Agency’s 40,000+ members – this enables businesses to use content from various sources including journal content, research reports, books, website material, and newspaper content. It also includes global content through bilateral rights exchanges with our international affiliates.
Retrospective Coverage
The ABL also provides the ability for new licensees to backdate the licence agreement for up to six years. This provides an organisation with retrospective coverage for any unlicensed use of Copyright Agency’s members works.
| Downstream Licence Available Via CA Licensed MMOs |
Annual Business Licence Available from CA |
|
| Make a digital copy | ✔ | ✔ |
| Print a copy | ✔ | ✔ |
| Email internally | ✔ | ✔ |
| Place on intranet | ✔ | ✔ |
| Store for 12 months | ✔ | ✔ |
| Store for longer than 12 months | ✘ | ✔ |
| Use newspaper articles published by Australian Community Media, News Corp Australia and Nine Publishing |
✘ | ✔ |
| Make a copy directly from the publisher’s website | ✘ | ✔ |
| Use news content not received from a Copyright Agency Licensed media monitor, such as from PR Agencies or other third parties |
✘ | ✔ |
| Post to website, social media or extranet* | ✘ | ✔ |
| Email to third parties** | ✘ | ✔ |
| Use in external documents like annual reports, meeting agendas and submissions** |
✘ | ✔ |
| Input individual Australian news articles into GenAI systems on an ad-hoc basis for prompt engineering |
✘ | ✔ |
| Use the output of Australian news articles from GenAI systems within your business and on your website and social media |
✘ | ✔ |
| Use content from Journals, books, research materials in your business |
✘ | ✔ |
| With “Client Sharing”, send newspaper articles and authorise your clients to share newspaper articles with you** |
✘ | ✔ |
| Obtain up to 6 years retrospective coverage for unlicensed use of works |
✘ | ✔ |
*applies to Australian newspaper articles only and limits apply. Please refer to the relevant licence agreements for full terms and conditions.
**limitations apply
This fact sheet is a guide only – please refer to the licence agreement for full terms and conditions.
About Copyright Agency
We’re an Australian not-for-profit organisation that represents over 40,000 members – publishers, researchers, journalists, and more. We collectively license their copyright, so your company can legally reuse content created by others, and be confident that its creators are being paid fairly for their work – thus practising Good Copyright Governance. Licensing revenue is redistributed to our members, ensuring the Australian creative economy remains strong.
Level 12, 66 Goulburn St Sydney NSW 2000
1800 066 844
licence.enquiries@copyright.com.au
copyright.com.au