Scope of using licenses in press clipping services market contracts

In connection with the upcoming period of tenders and renewal of contracts for media monitoring with offices, public institutions, as well as the broadly understood enterprise sector, SDiW Repropol reminds you of the basic requirements imposed on contracts by copyright law, the Act on collective management organizations and cooperation agreements between companies media monitors with Repropol.

 Each contract for the provision of press monitoring services should contain information on which titles are to be monitored. If the customer does not provide you with such a list, it should be presumed that he orders licenses from the full offer of your monitoring company.
 In each contract, you must specify the form of sharing press content so that it is consistent with the scope of the license granted and enables the correct calculation of amounts due to publishers in accordance with the "Remuneration table (...)" granted by the Copyright Commission at the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage to Repropol. Especially:
     if the full texts of the articles remain on the server of the monitoring company - the report concerns views of these materials made by end users;
     if full texts of articles are sent to the client's server - the report must include the number of client's end users (users) on which press content is available, which is associated with the appropriate rate in the "Salary Table";
     if full text articles are sent by e-mail to the client's employees, the report must include the number of e-mail addresses to which licensed press materials are sent.
 Monthly reports must contain complete data on the use of licenses by your company's client in all media distribution methods combined, thus:
     page views billing (customer ID, journal title, article title and number of page views);
     position settlement (client ID, title of the magazine and the number of articles from it sent to the client, number of positions/users and/or the number of all e-mail addresses to which the given press materials were sent by your company or client);
     settlement of e-mail addresses (client ID, title of the magazine and the number of articles from it sent to the client, the number of e-mail addresses to which the given press materials were sent by your company or the client).
 Each client should be informed in the contract (or in a separate letter) that the press content they receive as part of the press monitoring service may not be used beyond the scope described in the contract. Therefore, they cannot be additionally copied (also in social media), sent to third parties, as well as to other companies with which you do not have a signed contract.
 In particular, this applies to contracts with Public Relations companies that may order monitoring for their own needs, but if a PR agency transfers reviews and press materials received from you to its clients, it must obtain a license from Repropol representing publishers. If you currently provide such services to PR companies or other entities that may knowingly or unknowingly violate the law and disseminate press content without agreement, please amend your contracts accordingly and immediately notify Repropol of this situation.

We would like to remind you that the correct formulation of contracts for press monitoring with clients is a condition for raising the market from the unsatisfactory state of disregulation of service prices and license fees due to press publishers for copyrights to publications and press materials that they entrusted to their collective management organization – Repropol.

Fees for copyrights in the monitoring service should be borne by the beneficiary, i.e. the ordering party. The company providing media monitoring services is an intermediary, it should not and cannot offer rates other than those resulting from the ministerial Salary Table awarded to Repropol by the Copyright Commission at the Minister of Culture and National Heritage. SDiW Repropol is appointed to enforce receivables from contracts inconsistent with the scope of licenses granted and to ensure that respect for the creative work of journalists and publishers incurring the costs of producing and disseminating publications and materials protected by the laws on copyright and related law and on collective management organizations is restored.