We have received a copyright infringement complaint from NLA Media Access Limited – who cover the vast majority of UK-based news sites as well as a number of other international sites. Essentially they are claiming that anything more than 100 words (even with link and citation) along with even the TITLES of the articles are copyright infringement. This has left me with little recourse but to ban the usage of ANY UK-based news sites for the foreseeable future in BNR article submissions – even WITH article links and citation. While you can certainly comment on these sites in your Disqus comments you may not promote, link, cite or otherwise even MENTION any UK-based news sites in article submissions so long as this remains the current business/political climate of NLA Media Access Limited and their covered/protected properties (Daily Mail, Telegraph, Guardian, etc.)
Please note that I have also update our Community Guidelines to limit the excerpt length in general for ALL Breaking News article submissions to 100 words as I do not wish to incur the wrath of any other overreaching copyright ghouls. Sorry, but it looks like in the future it may be this way or no article linking at all. Might I encourage you lot to post more original opinion pieces? đŸ™‚ You can pretty much get away with murder when you summarize and butcher the original content and call it Perspectives. If we start getting enough of THAT content then maybe Perspectives becomes the new norm and Breaking News takes a back seat. Apply to become a regular content provider at BNR today. Posting about or linking to ANY news content on UK properties is too great of a risk for this site right now. We cannot afford to fight city hall.
The primary reason for my decision on this subject is that this is not a commercial site. We make no money from this. The users of this site pay the GoFundMe every year to JUST cover the hosting costs and that’s it. We cannot afford to pay legal fees to start fighting copyright overreach. I simply serve as the technical lead for this community and the moderators volunteer to oversee the management of it. It is as a labour of love. I apologize if the loss of UK voices will upset the balance of opinion on this site for the foreseeable future, but it is beyond my control.
theunknownsleeper (TUS)
2025-08-31