copyright
Could anyone translate crystal clearly an American radio&#39;s copyright department&#39;s e-mail?
<p><strong><a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/11500/does-downloading-and-posting-audio-content-on-my-private-company-blog-infringe?noredirect=1#comment20536_11500">This is the continuation of the prior question.</a></strong></p>

<p>I had confessed prior to receiving their ( NPR ( kindly see the above question. )), very specifically, having had revealed our homepage and the their materials that had been posted before, such as like in this e-mail.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Message: I am a director of a company, in English, "In Home Teaching Agency XXX." I've been listening to your Yokosuka navy base station ( I assume it would be so. ) since around 1997 and I enjoyed yours and since I always heard "support for NPR..." and you've been saying you are a "public radio". Granted, so that with that reason above, and after having read your "material" chapter, I was not able to comprehend for 100% sure if I had breached your copyright. We already uploaded used your products such as here <a href="http://www.XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX</a>
  without your permission, so if I had breached your copyright, just kindly let me know and I will delete them. This is a blog, but I am almost 95% sure I had infringed your copyright. However, can' we "compensate" for the possible breach by paying certain amount of due? And also, we would like to ask your permission to use your products even with certain amount of payment.</p>
  
  <p>Sincerely</p>
</blockquote>

<p>And their copyright department replied,</p>

<blockquote>
  <p><strong>Unfortunately NPR does not allow</strong> other websites to post our content, nor do we allow our material to be translated. <strong>You are welcome to link to NPR content from your page, along with a description of the report, if you would like</strong>.</p>
  
  <p>Here are the rules for linking:</p>
  
  <p>(from NPR's Terms of Use page at NPR.org)</p>
  
  <p><strong>NPR encourages and permits links to content on the NPR Services</strong>. However, NPR is an organization committed to the highest journalistic ethics and standards and to independent, noncommercial journalism, both in fact and in appearance. Therefore, the linking should not (a) suggest that NPR promotes or endorses any third party's causes, ideas, web sites, products or services, or (b) use NPR content for <strong>inappropriate commercial purposes</strong> or in any way that is unlawful or harmful to any other person or entity. We reserve the right to withdraw permission for any link.</p>
  
  <p>I hope this meets your needs.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks,</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Actually, their message didn't "meet" my requirement.</p>

<p>I wanted an answer such as "Yes you can, or No, you can not." </p>

<p>Or</p>

<p>Such as "You can use our content should you pay XXX dollars per the product."</p>

<p>Could anyone guide me about their e-mail please?</p>

<p>Thank you in advance.</p>

<p>This appears to be very clear to me: "NPR does not allow other websites to post our content..." I cannot think of a more clear way to say "Do not reproduce our content on your site."</p>

<p>Since you asked about licensing the right to reproduce their content, and they flatly ignored your request, I think it is safe to assume that they are not interested in licensing that right to you, even for a fee. This is also consistent with their "NPR does not allow [any] other websites to post..." language. It is always the copyright holder's right to refuse to offer any particular person (or all persons generally) a license, no matter what payment they might offer. (With the exception of statutory licenses, which in the U.S. exist only for recording covers of musical works.)</p>

<p>They have also ignored your request to recompense them for infringement already performed. If in the future they decide to take legal action against you for your past infringement (hugely unlikely that such a hassle would be worthwhile for NPR) or seek any out of court settlement (again, quite unlikely they will care enough), I'm sure they will let you know.</p>

<p>As they've said in their email, you are welcome to link to NPR's content. You are, of course, <em>not</em> welcome to spread misinformation or lies about NPR by claiming something like, "Look at this wonderful article that NPR wrote purely for us, at our personal request," or "NPR thinks that In Home Teaching Agency XXX is a great company, so we built a curriculum around their content," when NPR has never said any such thing. Any legal issue around linking would probably be a trademark offense, by wrongfully suggesting that NPR endorses you, or by misrepresenting yourself as an agent of NPR. If you don't do either of things, and just say, "Here's an article on [subject X] published by NPR," you're probably fine.</p>

<p>If you want to be very thorough, you could include a disclaimer on your site like, "In Home Teaching Agency XXX is not a licencee or partner of NPR. Links to NPR articles are included for educational purposes only," or similar. This seems pretty excessive to me, since a reasonable person won't assume that linking to an article from a major news source suggests a partnership, but I suppose it couldn't hurt to include such a disclaimer.</p>
