International Congress of the Monitoring Agencies under the Auspices of V. Havel Has Begun!

Prague 23 May (PROTEXT) - With the participation of representatives of themonitoring companies from more than 40 countries around the world began theFIBEP Congress. Organizer of the event, NEWTON Media company, is the marketleader in the field in Central Europe.

Prague’s Marriott Hotel sees an interesting stream of presentations anddiscussions on partnership and trust between the owners of copyrightprotected content (publishers, broadcasters, TVR, the Internet serversetc.) and monitoring companies.

In the beginning, the President of the Association FIBEP, Mr. NogueiraFresco, welcomed Congress participants. His speech was followed by awelcoming introduction by Petr Herian, the founder of NEWTON Media. Allguest then saw a video-greetings by the former Czech president VaclavHavel, who took patronage over the Congress.

Introductory remarks were made by the President of the InternationalFederation of copyright (CLA), Mr. Peter Shepherd. He opened the questionof copyright issues and principles. According to Mr. Shepherd, copyrightshould be solved collectively rather than via individual channels. "It isnecessary to change not only the legislation but also our approach tocopyright." Peter Shepherd also noted that there is a need to establish amonitoring mechanism to simultaneously supervise reasonable payment forcopyright.

Dominic Young, director of the editors at News International (UK divisionof News Corporation and the largest publisher of newspapers in the UK),informed the participants that they run a system of electronic clips andsaid that it is necessary to establish closer cooperation betweenpublishers and monitoring companies. Young mentioned the project ACAP(Automated Content Access Protocol), which allows on-line search engines togrant publishers’ permission to use their content.

Geert Wellens, director of the Belgian publishing group Mediafin, said thatthey focus not only on the printed newspapers, but they also informconsumer as well as publish reports and news throughout the day. Mediafinis a multimedia company, monitoring TVs, newsletters, magazines, andspecializing in the digital world. Newspapers, in Mr. Wellens’ opinion,publish only such news, which get Internet’s longest attention.

Margaret Boribon, general secretary of Copiepresse (it brings togetherFrench and German-language newspapers in Belgium; in 2007, Copiepresse wona lawsuit over Google in a copyright infringement case), pointed to thelimits and possibilities for the use of copyright today and in the future.

A panel discussion that followed and which was mainly about therelationship with the media, management rights, and the common vision ofuniversal, was chaired by John Croll, the owner of Australian monitoringcompany MediaMonitors.

The Congress continues today and on Saturday with key speeches of otherimportant personalities of the industry and with the presentations of newentrants to the FIBEP Association.

NEWTON Media, a.s. is the largest multinational Central European companymonitoring the media market. It provides complete content of news storiesfrom print media (newspapers, magazines), television and radio newsprogrammes, wire services, and the internet. All data that is obtained inelectronic form directly from the editors and publishers on a contractualbasis is processed into a single platform - the archive.

NEWTON Media, a.s. provides a classical monitoring, media analyses,industry digests, alert information solutions, and other services. Thecompany is working closely with Czech and foreign specialists in the fieldof speech recognition. It offers a wide range of services to publishers.Products and services are always up to requirements of individual clients.Software applications, including user interfaces and special searchtechnologies that were developed to measure our company, enable customersto work efficiently with the information to form unique value.

NEWTON Media, a.s. has 150 employees in the Czech Republic. It alsooperates in Slovakia and Poland. The company supports a number ofnon-profit organizations and is proud to be a favored corporate donor. In2003, NEWTON Media became a member of the International Association FIBEP,which currently brings together over ninety leading companies engaged inmedia monitoring from around the world. That represents 42 countries fromall continents.

FIBEP (Fédération Internationale des Bureaux d `Extraits de Presse) bringstogether a wide range of companies from more than 40 countries around theworld, providing its clients with customized monitoring and analysis of themedia. Members of FIBEP process requirements of individual clients, helpingthem in the management of relations with the media. FIBEP organizesregularly a 4-day congress, usually in the home country of one of itsmembers. Member companies that are involved in Congress are represented bytheir owners and top management. This unique concentration of people,sharing the most valuable know-how in this sector, guarantees a fruitfuldiscussion and the establishment of long-standing personal and businessrelationships of all parties concerned.

Contact:

Lucie Geislerová

E-mail: lucie.geislerova@newtonmedia.cz

Tel.: +420 606 600 579

NEWTON Media, a.s. (Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia)

Politických vězňů 10

110 00 Praha 1

Czech Republic

Tel.: +420 222 192 132

Fax: +420 222 192 192

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