What Gives You the Rights?
At our senior staff meeting today we had a very interesting talk from James Lancaster, who is the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's Head of Rights. He's the man trying to negotiate deals with rights-holders as the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ maps out the future of on-demand services, podcasting and giving viewers and listeners access to the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's archive of programmes.
I'm afraid I bombarded him with questions because this in an area that interests me a lot. At the moment we can't podcast music programmes because we don't have the right to use commercial music, unlike on radio where the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ has negotiated a buy-out of music rights. Similarly, when it comes to comedy, the cost of repeating a programme is so expensive that it almost works out cheaper to commission a completely new programme.
Now this might be a good thing if you think the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ should only be in the business of broadcasting original programmes, but comedy does take time to be noticed and appreciated by an audience. Very often a comedy won't build a following until it has been repeated.
James explained the complexities of all of this, but agreed with me that, while the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ has to be seen to be treating artists and writers fairly, other organisations and individuals don't seem so worried about the legal niceties.
