One of Scotland's leading law firms has welcomed the launch of the British Newspaper Archieve, which will transform the way people can access historical newspapers.
The website goes live today after a unique partnership, between the British Library and online publisher brightsolid, has allowed millions of newspaper pages to be digitalised.
Over the past 12 months brightsolid's team has been digitising up to 8,000 pages every working day. The archive should open up a fresh perspective on history.
Thorntons specialist Intellectual Property team has been advising brightsolid on this project since contract negotiations commenced.
Lesley Larg, head of the Intellectual Property team, who led the Thorntons team on the transaction said: "This has been a great project to be involved in and we are delighted to see the site go live.
"This was one of the highest profile UK copyright transactions of 2010. We had to find innovative legal solutions to ensure the true potential of the archive could be unlocked digitally. Digital copyright is a hugely topical area at the moment as recognised in the Government's response to the recently commissioned Hargreaves Report. This is an exciting time for the fantastic team at brightsolid and we look forward to working with them as the project progresses.
Chris Van Der Kuyl, CEO of brightsolid, said: "Lesley Larg at Thorntons led our advisory team on our most complex and difficult legal agreement to date. This deal took in almost every area of copyright and IP law and we were delighted with both the resulting agreement and the professional way in which the whole Thorntons team dealt with this project."
BBC - Historic newspaper archive opens
29 November 2011
Issued by Beattie Communications on behalf of Thorntons Solicitors.
Contact: Jennifer Black, Tel 01698 787878