The Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA) will include the regulation of hyperlinks to newspapers' online content as part of its licenses starting 1 September, Press Gazette reported.

The NLA, which oversees the use of online news stories by news monitoring services and PR companies, has said that the new license will concern "Web aggregator services...that forward links to newspaper Web sites and for press cuttings agencies undertaking this type of activity."

News International titles and the Financial Times will be the only papers to be excluded from the regulations imposed by the new license, which targets not only online news aggregators, but also copyright infringement through the distribution of copies and scans of printed articles.

The license is reported to vary depending on the type of organisation, taking into consideration factors such as how many employees the company has as well as the number of users it counts and the amount of newspaper clippings it circulates. Small companies are estimated to pay fees in the low hundreds of pounds range, while larger companies could pay up to 50,000 pounds, according to Press Gazette.