Is copyright going wrong?

The Bottom Line

BBC

Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Business

4.6 • 606 Ratings

🗓️ 27 June 2024

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Copyright law has been around since 1710. Back then it only applied to books. Now, it covers music, sport, film, television, video games, anything really.

It was also much easier to enforce in the days when people couldn't reproduce things all the time. That all started to change with the introduction of the humble music cassette tape. Now, we can all copy things and publish them to social media whenever we like.

Devices which can circumvent geographical barriers have meant that streaming services have had to rethink their business models. And no-one knows quite yet the potential AI has to change things.

So is it time that copyright law had a reboot?

Evan Davis is joined by: Lisa Ormrod, copyright lawyer and Associate Director at Springbird Law Nathalie Curtis Lethbridge, Founder of Atonik Digital which advises on streamed content and monetisation strategy John McVay, Chief Executive of PACT, the trade body for independents working in the UK screen industry

PRODUCTION TEAM: Producers: Alex Lewis, Drew Hyndman and Miriam Quayyum Editor: Matt Willis Sound: James Beard and Neil Churchill Production co-ordinator: Rosie Strawbridge

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:05.2	This is the podcast version of the bottom line.
0:08.1	It's some extra goodies in it.
0:09.6	We didn't have room for in the radio broadcast.
0:12.0	I hope you enjoyed it.
0:13.9	Hello, welcome to the programme.
0:15.6	For the next half hour or so, we are producing something called content.
0:19.7	This one is a business conversation, a chat show,
0:22.1	but it could be music, sport, film, literature or poetry, anything really. And here's our question
0:27.6	today. Who owns it? How do they make money from it without others simply copying it and not paying?
0:33.4	Or indeed, without others selling it on themselves. Now, in the case of the bottom line, to be
0:38.6	honest, I'm really happy if people want to share it and the guests I think are not going to be
0:43.0	proprietary about their individual contribution as they're doing it for free. But I'd still be
0:48.1	annoyed if I found out that you had packaged it up and sold it. And if I was the Premier League,
0:54.1	or if I was a Hollywood
0:55.4	film studio or a composer, my livelihood would depend on my ownership rights, which have to be
1:01.5	enforced if I'm to earn a return commensurate with my creativity. So today, we're asking whether
1:08.4	copyright law is doing its job in securing returns for creators.
1:14.0	Now, you might think this is a technical legal subject, but be in no doubt when a billion people can take a video of a movie and then post it online for billions of others to see.
1:23.7	When AI can generate creative content, having learned how to do it from looking at the best human artists,
1:30.6	when content rights are sold in one territory but can be accessed from other territories by relatively unsophisticated computer users,
1:38.1	you just get the picture of how the world is changing. Copyright may be going wrong.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.