The Financial Times has severed some ties with the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA) with the launch of a new clippings service, but will remain a shareholder of the agency.

The new press cuttings service will offer users a searchable digital archive of FT articles as they appeared in print.

These images were previously licensed by the NLA, but will now be incorporated into FT.com's access model, which allows registered users to view 10 articles per month for free and a range of subscription packages for access to more content.

Users will be able to search by keyword for articles and view them as text, a pdf of the article as it appeared or a pdf of the whole printed newspaper page.

"Many of our 800 corporate customers have asked for the ability to search for FT newspaper articles. This new functionality is in direct response to their request. It is also being launched in advance of the NLA licensing changes: as of 1 July 2010, the NLA will cease issuing new licences for digital images or scanning of FT articles," says Caspar de Bono, managing director of B2B for the FT, in a release.

"We have worked closely with the NLA and Press Cutting Agencies to implement this change. The consultation process we started in February has provided us with detailed insight into how press cuttings are used by PR professionals."

Media monitoring services and staff at organisations accessing digital versions of FT articles under an NLA licence will only have to purchase an FT direct licence when their current licence expires.

The Financial Times is one of eight newspaper shareholders of the NLA, which earlier this year made significant changes to its licensing of links by commercial cuttings and aggregation services to newspaper websites.

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