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Rights Clearances
5.2 Copyright, moral rights and performers’ rights
The three type of rights the producer or editor must clear are copyright, moral rights and
performers’ rights. The principles of copyright and moral rights are considered in detail in
Chapter 3.
Rights clearance involves satisfying:
Copyright – by assignment or licence
Moral rights – by waiver, and
Performers’ rights, such as actors or musicians – by consent to exploit.
Payment of a ‘use fee’ will also be required.
5.2.1 Copyright
The law of copyright prevents a person from copying the work of another without his
permission. A producer or editor must ensure that ‘underlying works’, such as a script or
book upon which a programme is based or music used in the programme, as well as other
copyright works integrated into the film, such as clips from films, television programmes,
interviews and songs and sound recordings, are all cleared with the copyright owner and an
appropriate fee paid.
Fair dealing
Copyright clearance is not required for news reporting and criticism and review under the
‘fair dealing’ defence provided by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998 (‘the
CDPA’). However, there is no definition of what is meant by fair dealing. Each case will
depend on what is taken and the reasons for which it was taken.
When reporting current events, no acknowledgement is necessary. However, when material
is used for a criticism or review, the work and the author must be given an
acknowledgement.
Fair dealing does not apply to use of photographs. Consent for the use of photographs must
be sought from the copyright owner, who will be the photographer himself unless he has
assigned the copyright to the person or company who commissioned the photograph.
Incidental inclusion
The defence of ‘incidental inclusion’ under Section 31 of the CDPA is aimed at allowing
programme makers and news broadcasters to show works that might otherwise breach
copyright. The general rule is that the inclusion of a work is allowed, provided that the maker
has no control over the inclusion of the pre-existing copyright work – for example, capturing
background music when interviewing people in the street.
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