Digital Rights and Wrongs

internet code

Back in the analogue age, television was easy to understand. You made the programme, people watched the programme, and if the programme ever saw the light of day again, everybody complained about the blessed repeats! The long tail has certainly changed all that; we now need Primary Rights, then Secondary Rights, if you’re lucky Format Rights, if you’re clever Mobile Rights and Digital Rights, and don’t forget good old International Rights.

The ever changing digital age has thrown up a great deal of confusion - or should that read negotiation. One thing for sure, as things move forward with speed, we need to glance back at how we’re working and adapt the process because new business needs new models.

The music industry has had to be ahead of the TV game. As music distribution has moved from in-store to online, the major record companies have implemented - with some success - digital rights management (DRM) in an attempt to deal with the evil of piracy. But it has found the existing models of rights payment collection wanting, especially when a project crosses borders.

While the TV industry is now coming to terms with the fact that you can go online and watch Martini Media (anytime, anyplace anywhere), it’s also starting to work with DRM systems to prevent file sharing piracy. The various business models might even have been conquered as to how these things actually get paid for, with a mixture of pay-per-play, subscription and even advertiser-supported.

What hasn’t really been worked out is who owns what, and what happens when the pictures cross international borders.

Anyone who has tried to do an international co-production or attempted global distribution on a programme which contains third party rights knows the issues. The problem - sorry opportunity - with the internet is the cross-border freedoms it allows.

The problem – sorry challenge - then is to try and protect a rights model which is dependent upon limited nation specific rights or find one which works cross-border. This is certainly the case in music where different publishers and distributors stake claims on the same piece of music in different territories.

Programming made from third party sources – music, film clips, TV archive - is traditionally produced on a need to use basis and the same could be said of contributors’ clearances or artists’ rights. If you’re making a programme for two UK showings then that is what you’re paid to do and the programme is made and rights cleared on those terms – no online – no mobile – no international. How very analogue! And even when there are no third party licenses and it’s just actors, presenters and writers with residual payment agreements, an analogue option seems the simplest.

Can you hear the call for “a buy-out” coming in the conclusion?

Buy-outs are a touchy subject; they have the whiff of denying somebody of something they deserve. It’s not the concept of the buyout that’s the issue of course it’s the level of money offered. And here’s the conclusion – if we’re going to able to produce programming which can be distributed digitally we need to have Martini clearances, and if we’re going to able to get them we need to be paying fair prices for them. All we have to do then is find out who we give the money to!