News aggregator's licensing enquiry meets with severe response from Dow Jones

Dow Jones' linking policy has come under scrutiny after the financial news service told a third-party site it could not archive, spider, link to or mention its publication's content.

The statement from Dow Jones came in response to Shafqat Islam, co-founder of personalised news aggregator NewsCred, after he contacted the publisher to find out the cost of a syndication licence for content from its Private Equity News site for use by a paying client through its business arm.

While being told that no such licence was available, Islam was informed that use of any content from Dow Jones International publications was strictly prohibited.

"We would not allow our content to be used in this form. Please do not archive, spider, link or otherwise mention or use any content from any Dow Jones International publications on your website. We hereby confirm that we do not allow the use of our IP on your site," Dow Jones' response reads.

A spokeswoman for the publisher later contradicted this statement, telling Journalism.co.uk: "Private Equity News, a specialist premium content site created primarily for the UK market, does not license its content to third-party websites. To be clear, Dow Jones allows and encourages linking to headlines and story summaries on our sites, including Private Equity News as an introductory gateway to those interested in our valuable and unique content. We are reaching out to the customer directly to clarify," .

The publisher also backtracked in its correspondence with NewsCred, suggesting that linking is OK, but must be accompanied by a note explaining where the link directs to. Islam later received an apology from Dow Jones, but was "dismayed" by the initial response he received. He told Journalism.co.uk he was concerned that a news organisation would disallow any mention of its content or re-use of a sentence from an article, even with proper attribution.

"We were requesting to pay for content, and not looking at harvesting their feeds or using content without permission (...) The gentleman who called me directly apologised and said they are actually open to discuss options, even for Private Equity News content which they normally don't license. He said they are always looking at revising/improving their licensing strategies and would always be open to consider based on the specific scenarios.

"We also discussed various scenarios where it might be appropriate to license and he certainly seemed to agree with most of my points. In this case, we have left the door open and might still end up licensing the content in the future. At this point, they are still brainstorming internally to see what the opportunities are to expand their licensing options," Islam told Journalism.co.uk.

Free daily newsletter

If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).