Todd Scott: NBR owner on the company's recent legal victory

Companies sharing small numbers of subscription passwords to access paywalled news content may face legal scrutiny.

Business website NBR has reached settlements with three major corporates, including a national law firm, for what it calls the 'illegal stealing of its content'.

NBR owner Todd Scott says this case is a 'friendly warning shot' for the impacted companies. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now, the NBR is celebrating a big win in a
major copyright lawsuit. They took legal action against companies that
were sharing passwords for payward subscriptions, arguing that doing so
is essentially stealing content. The companies have now settled with
the NBA cover the legal costs, agreed to buy the
proper number of subscriptions. Todd Scott is a businessman and
who's the owner of the NBA here and he's with
us High Todd.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Good greetings, how are you?

Speaker 1 (00:21):
And very well? Thank you? Know how many subscriptions were
they sharing amongst themselves?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
It was, it was it was a case of just
buying a few subscriptions and overusing those subscriptions. I don't
really want to go into details. And I got to say, there,
but for the grace, go there, for the grace of God,
go I There'd be plenty of CEOs who weren't aware,
aren't aware of what's going on in their organizations, but
it's quite well spread. And really what this is is

(00:49):
just a friendly warning shot. It's like, you know, if
we were playing a sport, to be the referee getting
the two captains together saying hey, listen, if you guys
don't sort out your teams, there's going to be some
serious comment sequences, you know, go on, talk to your teams.
And that's really what I'm doing. I'm talking to CEO saying,
I know you don't know what's going on, but it
is actually your job to know you are accountable, You
are responsible, and it's just straight out theft. I mean,

(01:13):
we introduce the payball back in July two thousand and nine.
So we actually started off with an IP subscription model,
which isn't all you can eat. Companies pay for it.
But in twenty twenty, due to COVID and people working
from home, that didn't work anymore because the IT managers
didn't want people accessing VPN from home. So my wife,
who is really the brains of the business, Jackie, she

(01:35):
actually had been working on another project where we actually
introduced group premium subscriptions. So we're not changing anything. These
corporates are buying groups, they assigned the subscriptions to people
in their employment and they should be using those for themselves,
not letting other people share their password. But it goes on,

(01:58):
but it can't go on anymore for us because NBR
doesn't take government funding. We don't take advertising. We're one
hundred percent funded by a member subscribers. We've got fifteen seniors,
one intermediate. Our biggest group subscriber is three hundred. That
generates fifty four thousand dollars a year plus GST. That's
not even enough for a junior.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Now, did you take action because they had bought a
subscription and they were sharing it amongst themselves as staff,
or they were sharing it outside of the organization.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
They were sharing it with staff and outside the organization,
but just the fact that they were sharing it. You know,
we have a scaling model. We are very attractive scaling models.
And it's just a case of people understanding when you
do that, you are literally stealing. There is no other
way that NBA can generate money. So when you rob

(02:48):
us of that opportunity, it is stealing. And what happens
here that you know this the supermarkets, the theft, you know,
all the shoplifting, there's a name for it, they call
it shrinkage, and ultimately ends up happening is the customer
actually has to pay for it. So when you go
to the supermarket, they've built in the fact somebody's going
to Nike this so Heather, you have to pay more
for it, and I don't want our loyal member subscribers

(03:11):
to have to incur another price increase because our content
and our platform has been ripped off.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Have organizations other than the ones that you have settled
with got the message and started buying subs?

Speaker 2 (03:23):
I hope. So because I've got it, we've actually come
up with a sophisticated system and method. You can go, Yes,
we can, and what are you saying that we it's
not pretty and we have a short list and we're
going after that now.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
So this is not the end of it. You're coming
after the other people doing the same thing.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Absolutely, And I've been I've been quite I've been quite
honest and quite open and I think generous. You know,
there's an amnesty until the end of November, you know,
tidy up house. Otherwise I'm not going to let you
get away with a settlement. I'm going to take it
all the way through the courts. It's a serious thing.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
How can you tell if someone is sharing a password
with too many people?

Speaker 2 (04:05):
When you're looking at the data and the analytics that
I get to look at with my team, it's that
there's alarm bells that go off pretty quickly.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
Like you will see the same password and username and
password combo logging on across all kinds of different devices.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
And there's different there's there's different IP addresses, so you know,
so a really obvious one that we found with one
of these particular companies, it was an IP address from
a person in Australia that was also logging on in
New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
Okay, Now, how many subs did these ones that you
settled with take on after you settled with them?

Speaker 2 (04:38):
A great number more than they had. Give me a number,
Although I have to say I think my lawyer did
slightly better out of this arrangement than I did.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
I was going to say, is it actually worth it?
I mean for the cost of legal action for.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Well, it cost me nothing. They paid for it, which
was kind of.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Doesn't mean successful, right, So is it worth it?

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Well? I am so far?

Speaker 1 (04:59):
Are you okay? To thank you much.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
I wouldn't have gone after them if I didn't know
that they were sitting ducks.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Lord Todd, thank you very much. Todd Scott, businessman and
the NBR owner.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
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