User:Benrid1975

Copyright Licensing Agency

Type: Company limited by guarantee

Founded: 1983. Headquarters: Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Area served: United Kingdom. Key people; John Nuttall (Independent chair), Kevin Fitzgerald (CEO), Martin Delaney (Legal Director & Company Secretary), Mat Pfleger (Sales and Marketing Director). Services: Copyright, creators & publishers rights, reproduction rights organisation. Revenue: £51.8m collected in licence fees (2007/8). £47.9m paid to writers, visual creators and publishers in royalties. Full time employees: 60. Website: www.cla.co.uk.

Introduction

The Copyright Licensing Agency Limited (CLA) is a private company owned by authors and publishers. It exists to protects their creativity by ensuring that they are fairly rewarded for the use of their intellectual property. It licenses organisations that wish to copy and re-use extracts from print and digital publications on behalf of its owners.

Overview of role

CLA license, and collect fees from, thousands of UK organisations from across the business, government and education sectors. They also have international agreements that enable them to collect fees when UK owned works are copied overseas.

CLA licences provide easy legal access to UK and international business and consumer periodicals, magazines, books, journals, electronic and online publications.

The licences offer a convenient solution to organisations that wish to photocopy, scan and email copyright publications without having to seek permission from the rights holders each time.

CLA is owned by authors and publishers and was set up in 1983 by the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society Limited (ALCS) and the Publishers’ Licensing Society Limited (PLS) to perform collective licensing on their behalf.

CLA also represents the Design and Artists Copyright Society Limited (DACS) through an agency agreement that enables us to license the copying of artistic works.

All the money collected in licence fees is paid to ALCS, PLS and DACS to distribute to authors, publishers and visual creators, after a deduction of 11% to cover their costs.

Since 1983 CLA has collected over £450 for UK rights holders.

Governance

In its role as a representative of authors, publishers and visual creators, CLA has 4 levels of governance management and control.

1.	At the highest level are the 3 societies, ALCS, PLS and DACS. 2.	The CLA Board of Directors that approve strategic direction and policies and are made up of an independent chair plus representatives from the 3 societies. 3.	The CLA Executive Committee made up of the CLA Chair, CEO, Finance Director, Company Secretary and the CEOs of the 3 societies who make strategy proposals to the board, implement strategy and review performance. 4.	Finally, the CLA Management Committee made up of the CEO and the senior management team who manage all day to day operations.

There are also a number of board committees who are typically made up of 3 board members.