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The news agency which provides stories for most of Britain’s media is
now releasing those same stories to domestic and business users through
the online information and software service CompuServe.

The new facility, which means that the Press Association’s ‘wire’ service
is available for no extra charge to CompuServe’s two million users, has
considerable implications for copyright of information. The PA admits that
newspapers in Britain may exploit the fact that they can obtain stories
for free as they happen. Because facts do not carry any copyright, some
people may be tempted to rewrite or simply act on the PA’s stories viewed
through CompuServe, rather than pay the PA the monthly fee, which can run
into thousands of pounds, for the information.

In February 1993, a number of regional and local newspapers in Britain
stopped subscribing to the PA’s services and set up their own joint news
agency because they thought the charges were too high. Now other newspapers
may be tempted to sever their links with the PA but continue accessing the
information through CompuServe.

‘It is an area of concern,’ says Mark Tucker, the PA’s major accounts
manager, who negotiated the deal. ‘But we believe that there are sufficient
safeguards in place to protect our interests.’

The principal safeguard is a warning before users access the PA service,
which says that they must not use it ‘for commercial gain’. Legally, anyone
who takes information from a story and uses it, for example, to deal on
the stock market, without first paying the PA, is infringing its copyright.

However, the problem for the PA and CompuServe, which is buying the
information from the PA, will be policing its use. ‘If we found out that
someone has been using the service for (gain) then we would cut them off,’
says Andrew Gray, CompuServe’s managing director in Britain, who signed
the deal. ‘If problems do arise with this, then it will be removed from
the service. But they would have to be big problems.’ He also notes that
the problem is ‘a legal minefield’. ‘We are a very conservative company,
and if we get any sense that people are overstepping the boundaries, the
product will be removed.’

Mark O’Conor, who specialises in laws relating to multimedia for Bird
& Bird, a London solicitor, says: ‘In this area, the laws tend to be
out of date even before they are made.’

One alternative to the ‘commercial gain’ warning might be to delay the
news, which would reduce its usefulness to media organisations. This already
happens with stock market prices, which are available through CompuServe
but delayed by up to half an hour to reduce their commercial value. Tucker
says that if any of the PA’s major clients were abruptly to end their contracts,
‘we’d want to know why’.

CompuServe has seen its worldwide subscriber base rise from about half
a million in 1988 to almost 2 million this year.