Contributor Rights
Hear from the people behind the scenes at the BBC Archive
Contributor Rights
Contributor Rights
An interview with Simon Haywood-Tapp from the BBC Rights department
There's a whole department in the BBC that negotiates agreements so the BBC can re-broadcast archive programmes. This interview with BBC Rights expert Simon Hayward-Tapp explains why rights is a complicated subject.
- Click on a heading below to jump to that section of the film
- Why can't I have access to the entire BBC archive?
- What are 'rights' in broadcasting terms?
- In broadcasting terms, who has 'rights'?
- What if the person with 'rights' cannot be traced?
- Do people ever refuse to grant rights?
Transcript
In broadcasting terms, who has 'rights'?
There's a whole raft of people who have rights associated with the contributions that they make to our programmes - writers, actors, musicians, occasionally cameramen, and directors. They all have rights of one different kind or another. The way in which we reward them for those rights is that sometimes we pay them to do the work and then we pay them again when we repeat it or sell it. In other instances, they have rights where we just make them one payment - what's called a 'buy-out' in the trade, where they get one payment and then we don't pay them again but we can still use their contributions. It's a very mixed economy.
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