Help NLA identify the next generation of licensing opportunities
The rapid growth of AI, risk, compliance and intelligence services has dramatically increased automated access to publisher content. While many organisations are appropriately licensed, others are systematically accessing publisher content without permission or outside existing licensing arrangements.
NLA’s Collective Intelligence Service combines data from participating publishers to identify organisations systematically accessing publisher content across the network. The intelligence will help NLA identify new licensing opportunities, protect existing licensed markets and support coordinated enforcement where organisations refuse to engage.
The purpose of the service is simple: help NLA identify organisations that should either be licensed or, where appropriate, become the subject of coordinated enforcement activity.
The service is not a replacement for CDN analytics, bot management or website reporting tools. It is a collective licensing and enforcement capability that uses publisher data, market knowledge and cross-publisher intelligence to identify commercial opportunities and protect the value of licensed content.
Where organisations are operating legitimately, NLA will seek to engage them commercially and bring them into appropriate licensing schemes. Where organisations refuse to engage or appear to be operating unlawfully, NLA may recommend coordinated blocking or other enforcement action.
The service is provided free of charge to participating publishers. As the intelligence available to NLA improves, so too does its ability to identify new licensing opportunities, protect the existing licensed ecosystem and generate additional royalty income for participating publishers.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the Bot Collective Intelligence service?
The free service combines web server and CDN access log data from participating publishers to identify organisations systematically accessing publisher content. NLA uses that intelligence to assess whether an organisation is already licensed, represents a potential licensing opportunity, or may require further investigation or coordinated enforcement or blocks.
Its value lies in combining cross-publisher data with NLA’s knowledge of the monitoring, intelligence, risk and AI markets.
- Why is NLA offering this service?
NLA needs better intelligence to identify organisations using publisher content outside appropriate licensing arrangements. Without that visibility, potential customers may remain unlicensed and new services may undercut organisations that already pay for content. The service will help NLA identify and convert licensing opportunities, protect existing licensed markets and build evidence where enforcement may be required.
- What makes this different from other “bot” products?
CDN and bot-management tools are designed primarily to detect and manage automated traffic. NLA is not seeking to replicate those capabilities.
NLA combines cross-publisher data with its market knowledge to:
- identify organisations behind significant automated access
- determine whether they are already licensed
- understand whether their activities fall within media monitoring, risk, compliance, intelligence, TDM or AI-related markets.
- identify potential licensing opportunities.
- build evidence for coordinated action where organisations refuse to engage.
- gather collective intelligence that would not be visible from one website alone.
The service complements existing bot management products rather than replacing them.
- How does the service work?
The service analyses publisher web access data to identify organisations systematically accessing publisher content across the network.
The most valuable source of intelligence is full CDN and/or Web Server log data because it includes IP addresses. While many legitimate crawlers identify themselves through user agents, organisations seeking to avoid detection often disguise themselves as ordinary browsers or rotate user agents. IP-level analysis allows NLA to identify distributed activity, correlate behaviour across publishers and build much stronger attribution and evidence.
Publishers do not need to implement new technology or provide data in real time. NLA can work with:
- Secure periodic exports to an agreed location (for example daily or weekly).
- Existing CDN export capabilities.
- Direct CDN integrations where appropriate.
NLA can support common CDN providers, standard log formats and existing export mechanisms wherever possible.
Where publishers are unable to provide IP-level data, NLA may also be able to work with aggregated data, although this provides a more limited level of intelligence and may reduce NLA’s ability to attribute activity to specific organisations.
The objective is to minimise technical effort for participating publishers while maximising NLA’s ability to identify licensing opportunities and support coordinated enforcement where necessary.
- Is publisher data kept confidential?
Yes. Publisher data is handled under strict confidentiality arrangements. Individual publisher information is never shared with other publishers.
Where NLA shares collective findings with participating publishers, information is anonymised and aggregated to avoid revealing commercially sensitive information.
Where full log integration is used, processing is undertaken under a GDPR-compliant data sharing agreement.
- Will NLA block bots on my behalf?
No. Publishers remain responsible for technical controls on their own websites. Where NLA identifies an organisation that appears to require a licence, NLA will normally seek commercial engagement first. If the organisation refuses to engage, or its activity is clearly illegitimate, NLA may recommend coordinated blocking or other enforcement action.
- What information will I receive?
Participating publishers may receive collective updates on:
- Organisations identified as operating across participating publisher sites.
- New licensing opportunities being pursued by NLA.
- Significant emerging patterns in automated content access.
- Organisations under investigation or considered for coordinated action.
- Recommended collective responses where appropriate.
The service is not intended to provide publisher-level traffic analytics or replace the reporting available from a publisher’s CDN or bot-management provider.
- Can this help identify new licensing opportunities and/or support enforcement?
This is the primary purpose of the service. Where the intelligence identifies organisations making systematic commercial use of publisher content, NLA will assess whether an existing or new licence is appropriate and seek to engage them commercially.
Where an organisation falls within NLA’s mandate, refuses to license and continues accessing content, the intelligence may support coordinated blocking, investigation or legal enforcement.
NLA may also pass relevant opportunities to individual publishers where the appropriate rights sit outside NLA’s mandate.
- What are the benefits of participating?
Participating publishers help NLA:
- Identify new licensing opportunities that might otherwise remain invisible.
- Increase collective licensing revenue and future royalty distributions.
- Protect existing licensed businesses from unlicensed competitors.
- Build evidence where organisations refuse to engage commercially.
- Coordinate blocking or enforcement where collective action is more effective than publishers acting individually.
The service is free to participating publishers. Its value increases as more publishers contribute data, because broader participation gives NLA a clearer picture of activity across the market.
For any further questions, please contact [email protected]