Newspaper claims scheme
Scope of the scheme
In 2008 ALCS signed an Agreement with the Société Civile des Auteurs Multimedia in Belgium to collect fees due to UK authors under the terms of a statutory scheme dealing with the reprographic copying of UK newspapers in Belgium.
This means that ALCS will now pay freelance journalists in the UK their share of this income from Belguim for works written for UK National Newspapers.
Please note, this income derives from a statutory scheme in Belgium. The licensing scheme for the reprographic copying of newspapers in the UK is administered by the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA).
Distribution of fees
ALCS will now make payments for this photocopying in the February 2012 distribution. To receive a share of fees in this distribution, freelance journalists are invited to claim their share of the fund.
Who is eligible?
At the present time, claims must meet the following criteria:
- Articles must have been written on a freelance basis
- Articles claimed for must have a minimum word count of 250 words
- The claimant’s name must be listed under the published article
- Articles claimed for must have been published in a national UK newspaper between 1st January 1998 and 31st December 2008
How to make a claim
ALCS is introducing a claims based scheme whereby writers register their published articles with ALCS and receive a share of the total photocopying royalties collected. This means that writers will receive a payment for their eligible articles being available to be photocopied in Belgium between 1st January 1998 and 31st December 2008. Claims for newspaper articles can be made in exactly the same way as for journal and magazines articles, by registering for the ALCS Members’ area and submitting articles online or by downloading a Newspaper Article Details Form and sending it to the Writers' House.