Buying a licence to copy and share content from newspapers and magazines has been significantly enhanced through Copyright Agency’s revamped RightsPortal.

The online licensing platform was relaunched today with new features to improve the user experience, making it easier to obtain the rights to use copyright-protected content on a pay-per-use basis.

Copyright Agency, which recently merged with Viscopy, is Australia’s national copyright licensing organisation for the publishing, media, surveying and visual arts industries. It has 40,000 direct and indirect members providing a range of content for licence.

Copyright Agency’s director of commercial licensing, Guy Johnson, said: “Since the launch of the RightsPortal in 2010, we’ve witnessed the growth of pay-per-use licensing in the Asia-Pacific region. We want to support this with our online licensing platform.

“Our objective is to make clearing rights as easy, quick and convenient as possible to ensure customers are using available content legally. Fees from the licences are distributed to authors and publishers to support them in developing more great content.”

Users will now be able to secure more re-use rights across the following categories:

• Higher circulation/distribution runs for material republished in books.
• Use in course materials and exam papers.
• Use in TV/documentary/movie/streaming.
• Posting to social media.

“In an ever-changing business landscape, being able to copy and share newspaper and magazine articles is vital to staying informed and ad hoc needs can arise,” Johnson said.

“The RightsPortal enables users to licence those specific pieces of content that don’t fall under regular newspaper subscription or existing copyright agreements. This service enables users to share those ad hoc articles with the permission of the publisher.”

Media publishing partners include News Corp, Fairfax Media and Bauer Media.