What we do

PLS’ services and resources

Publishers’ Licensing Services (PLS) provides UK and international publishers with valuable collective licensing services. Our other services include support for their rights management and permissions. We were set up by publishers, for publishers, and are proud to have served the industry for more than four decades.

Collective licensing

PLS’ core purpose is to oversee collective licensing for the reuse of extracts of book, journal, magazine and website content across the public and private sectors. More than 4,000 publishers trust us to manage their collective licensing and ensure they receive the money they are entitled to when someone copies or otherwise reuses extracts of their content. 

PLS represents over 4,500 publishers and collected and distributed more than £49.3 million in 2025-26.

Read how collective licensing works.

Help with permissions

PLSclear is an award-winning permissions platform designed to save publishers time and reduce the often admin-heavy processes associated with handling permissions requests. By opting in to PLSclear, publishers' titles will be available to our growing global permissions market, while also giving publishers the tools to manage permissions more efficiently. Signing up is easy and straightforward, and there are no annual subscriptions or set up fees to participate in the service.

Read about our permissions services.

Rights management resources

PLS Rights & Licensing Hub is a free online resource curated by industry rights experts that provides in-depth courses and jargon-free resources on a range of rights topics. Available to anyone wishing to improve their knowledge, learn best practice, and get a better understanding of how good rights management can make a significant difference to the revenue, profitability and value of any publisher

Access to Research

Access to Research provides free, on-demand access to millions of academic articles in UK public libraries. It makes it easy for anyone to read high quality, world-leading research, and helps publishers share content with researchers, students and others who might benefit from it.

Read about the Access to Research service.

Learn more and register

Take a look around our website to discover how we can help your business. If you like what you see, it’s quick and free to register with PLS for collective licensing, and easy to access our permissions and rights management support.