As reported by Press Gazette, NLA Media Access successfully removed more than 50,000 articles from 1,000 fake or illegitimate news sites in 2021.

This is more than double the 20,000 articles removed from more than 700 sources the year before.

Matt Aspinall, head of publisher services at NLA, told Press Gazette the sources range from individual bloggers to more sophisticated fake news sites, adding that publishers with paywalls are not immune from the risk of having their content copied.

NLA Media Access works on behalf of the UK’s newspaper and magazine publishers to license organisations making paper and digital copies of newspaper, magazine and news website content.

Its Text Tracker service identifies and manages the removal of content on behalf of publishers whose copyright is being infringed.