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License and copyright
You can rely on our expertise when it comes to license and copyright.
As your partner for media monitoring and media review services we take it upon ourselves to answer every question you might have about licensing rights and costs. We will take over the license management while you focus your attention entirely on your work. To accomplish this we closely work with licensing bodies, take care of all the formalities and ensure that you get a copyright-cleared, C-level ready media review, and you don't even have to worry about the minutiae of the ancillary copyright.
FAQ
We have summarized the answers to the most common questions about media reviews and licensing rights.
The distribution of printed articles within a media review is regulated by the Copyright Act (§49).
It stipulates that it is generally illegal to create a digital copy of a print publication and is not permissible without the consent of the author. The law only permits to create seven photo-copies of a single article. Should you require more copies, you can obtain a license from VG Wort. However, even with that license, it is still illegal to create digital copies.
Nevertheless, many companies distribute copyrighted material in an internal media review without having to fear any legal consequences. Here, a digital media review is often a more cost-effective and legally safe alternative.
Online articles only need to be cleared for copyright if they are reproduced in full text within a media review. There are no licensing fees for online media monitoring because we only provide an excerpt of the text with a link to the original source (deep link).
Of course, we can also deliver the articles in full text upon request, however, they would fall under the §49 of the Copyright Act and would require the same copyright clearance as the digitized print articles.
Digital media reviews can be distinguished based on the underlying licensing process. There are two licensing paths: VG Wort and the Presse-Monitor-Gesellschaft (PMG).
A digital media review from VG Wort, in accordance with the §49 of the Copyright Act, is a media review that has been created and/or distributed digitally and exclusively contains articles from news papers and other sources which essentially focus on daily events. This means that such a media review cannot contain material from science magazines or professional and trade publications.
A digital media review from PMG, on the other hand, contains articles that are licensed though the PMG. The PMG sells licenses for electronic use of independently digitized articles and at the same time provides these articles in digital form. Media reviews created with this model come with a wide range of storage, distribution and archiving rights, unlike VG Wort media reviews.
If you would like to receive a digital media review you would definitely need a license agreement with a copyright collective such as the PMG or VG Wort.
These organizations also regulate neighboring rights in connection with electronic media reviews, e.g. image or archiving rights. Of course, we would manage the licenses for you so that you can focus on your actual work.
The individual fees for a single article are set directly by the publisher represented by the PMG. Generally speaking, the amount of the licensing fee is largely determined by the number of readers of the media review.
We will gladly discuss and estimate the fees for your custom media review in a private consultation. Simply give us a call or send us an email.
If you would like to include press photos and images in your media review you can purchase the rights for this material as well. The conditions for image rights are also based on the number of the recipients/readers. We will gladly advise you on this!
We can integrate all the relevant and digitally available press photos, charts and tables along with the article text.
Reports and articles from outside of Germany are also subject to the copyright laws. The licensing conditions and costs vary greatly depending on the country of origin. Therefore, we advise each client on a case by case basis about the applicable conditions for individual requirements.