
Images shared on the #ExtraSlice hashtag. I don’t know who took these* – they waived their moral rights
This year’s series of The Great British Bake Off has a social media-savvy spin-off: An Extra Slice.
It’s a mix of interviews, punditry and contributions from audience members and viewers. But the programme makers have a curious approach to copyright law which users of Twitter and Instagram may be ‘agreeing’ to without knowing about it.
The official Twitter account for the programme -@BritishBakeOff – regularly directs followers to tweet contributions under the hashtag #ExtraSlice, as well as a direct email address.
Email #ExtraSlice pics of your #PieWins, #PieFails, #TartWins and #Tartfails: extraslice@loveproductions.co.uk #GBBO
— British Bake Off (@BritishBakeOff) August 29, 2014
The @BritishBakeOff Twitter account bio says that those images “may be used on air” – but what it doesn’t say is that “We have decided that we don’t have to give you credit for them“. It also doesn’t mention their use on social media.
Unfortunately the Bake Off Twitter bio uses a broken link to the terms (ow.ly/zN5L) which generates a security warning before taking you to an error page. The fact that this hasn’t been spotted suggests no one is bothering to click on it.
Once you do track down those terms on the production company’s site (not the BBC’s), however, some strange passages jump out. Most notably this one:
Moral rights are the rights to be identified as the author(s) of any copyrighted works. These are separate to economic rights: the right to charge money, or not, for the work.
Moral rights cannot be given to someone else
Moral rights cannot be sold or transferred. For example, Michael Jackson could buy the economic rights to Lennon and McCartney’s songs, but he could never buy the moral right to be identified as the writer of those songs (This will become important later in the post!)
However, moral rights do have to be asserted, and they can be waived (the Association of Photographers has some concerns about both).
In case there’s any confusion, a second passage later on repeats the claim more explicitly:
“You acknowledge that we are not obliged to … accord you any credit in respect of such use, whether or not you have identified yourself (by your real name or otherwise) in submitting the Material.”
It’s not initially clear why the programme makers would insist upon such terms. These rights are, after all, not about money but about authorship.
The show itself takes a relatively traditional approach with the ‘your photos’ section, crediting “Alice” and “Jake from London”:
It may be that the terms are ‘laundry list’ terms drawn up by someone who wants to cover all bases, or that programme makers don’t want to have to name, or fully name, the person who submitted a photo, humorous comment, poem or recipe used on air. “Alice”, after all, may prefer to be credited properly.
Either way, it’s lazy. And with copyright such a sensitive subject online – particularly with recipes – these terms have the potential to blow up in the creators’ faces.
The Cooks Source recipe controversy: |
Cleland Thom, author of the books Internet Law and Facebook for Journalists, feels that the terms are exploitative:
“I think these T&Cs must be the most comprehensive exploitation of people’s copyright I’ve ever seen. The only thing they’ve missed is extending their rights to cover the moon and other planets. I’d rename the programme the Great British Ripoff.
Of course there’s little guarantee that anyone using the #SecondSlice hashtag has ever seen the @BritishBakeOff biography, their dead link, or the page it should be linking to.
Many Twitter clients automatically add hashtags to replies to tweets containing them, as do users. It’s unlikely that using #SecondSlice could be enforced as informed agreement.
Thom adds that requiring users to “irrevocably” waive their rights is problematic, and probably not enforceable:
“The only way a the creator of a copyright work can ‘waive’ their moral rights is to choose not to exercise them. But in my view, they are legally entitled to re-assert them any time.
“You can ‘choose’ to waive them, or ‘unwaive them’, whenever you like … and change your mind…”
Bake Off asserts its own ‘moral rights’ – over images it didn’t create
Perhaps the biggest clue to why Bake Off want users to waive their moral rights lies in the Great British Bake Off’s own assertion of its moral rights over every image they tweet – including images that they did not create.
Here, for example, is the image sent in by “Alice” – credited vaguely in the accompanying tweet but not in the image itself.
The secret of baking a 3D biscuit spectacular? It’s all about the support… #ExtraSlice #GBBO (Nice work Alice) pic.twitter.com/LyxYqkVjlO
— British Bake Off (@BritishBakeOff) August 15, 2014
At this point we’ve moved from simply preventing users asserting their own moral rights, to beginning to transfer those moral rights to the programme. As explained earlier, this is not allowed. Cleland Thom says: “My view is they can’t do that.”
Then there are these images – were these photos really taken by Bake Off? (Thanks to Jonathan Cresswell for identifying two that were from a show, now removed)
Here is the whole passage of those terms in full:
UPDATE (February 12 2015): Cleland Thom points me to this article about intellectual property and Love Productions.
“With ideas for programmes and formats not directly protected by copyright law, to borrow terminology from the show’s most fear inducing round, it’s something of a technical challenge, protecting a brand such as the Bake Off.
“Unable to copyright the idea, Love Productions can instead define and register each of the various intellectual property ingredients such as the music, graphics or phrases that contribute to the overall flavour of the programme. Understanding, defining and protecting the different elements that are part of the mixture is the path to an IP platform that others will struggle to eat into.”
*Images by (in order): @charlesroper; Liz Hanson (@chrisaliz1); @NordicLaura (two images); Emily Sadler (@emilysadler1197) Alice Adores Apparel (@AliceAdores); @BritishBakeOff; @budgetjett; @AngieHoneybun
Comments on Twitter:
@paulbradshaw Yes, exploitative and cavalier. The image I posted (as a joke) is not even mine, it’s just “a picture off the Internet”.
— Charles Roper (@charlesroper) September 3, 2014
@paulbradshaw @AliceAdores #secondslice doesn’t bother me, didn’t send picture of my wrecked cake wanting recognition particularly.
— Liz Hanson (@chrisaliz1) September 3, 2014
@paulbradshaw @chrisaliz1 disappointing they feel it is appropriate to not give credit. I’m mainly using the # to share my blog post.
— Alice Adores Apparel (@AliceAdores) September 3, 2014
@AliceAdores @paulbradshaw agree with that.
— Liz Hanson (@chrisaliz1) September 3, 2014
@paulbradshaw @chrisaliz1 so far on the show they seem to have given the names of the bakers of any of the featured viewer bakes.
— Alice Adores Apparel (@AliceAdores) September 3, 2014
@paulbradshaw @chrisaliz1 very interesting discussion post though. Raises some important wider issues around copyright.
— Alice Adores Apparel (@AliceAdores) September 3, 2014
@adambanksdotcom @paulbradshaw It would depend on whether their *were* terms specified in the first place.
— Karl Hodge (@karlhodge) September 3, 2014
@adambanksdotcom @paulbradshaw If not, statutory law takes precedence.
— Karl Hodge (@karlhodge) September 3, 2014
@paulbradshaw @adambanksdotcom If you agree to a set of contractual terms, then those are binding. Otherwise UK copyright law would be.
— Karl Hodge (@karlhodge) September 3, 2014
@paulbradshaw @chrisaliz1 It brings up the issue of ownership of #s. Does a hashtag creator have ownership of tweets which include it?
— Alice Adores Apparel (@AliceAdores) September 3, 2014
@paulbradshaw @chrisaliz1 how do you prove who created a #?Is it the user of the 1st tweet?The 1st time it is published (on twitter or not)?
— Alice Adores Apparel (@AliceAdores) September 3, 2014
@paulbradshaw It’s standard in eg magazine and advertising contracts – everything except books really – to waive moral rights, simply…
— Adam Banks (@adambanksdotcom) September 3, 2014
@paulbradshaw …because crediting may not be practical in all circumstances, or can get accidentally omitted in production.
— Adam Banks (@adambanksdotcom) September 3, 2014
@paulbradshaw Biggest problem I see (which you did cover) is people submitting pics to which they have no rights.
— Adam Banks (@adambanksdotcom) September 3, 2014
@paulbradshaw I can see the reference to them asserting their own moral rights but can’t find where that occurs (probably me being dim)
— Adam Banks (@adambanksdotcom) September 3, 2014
@paulbradshaw The hashtag thing is a good point. Not clear that it’ll always be added deliberately by user having seen T&Cs.
— Adam Banks (@adambanksdotcom) September 3, 2014
@paulbradshaw Again, that seems standard – you may need to crop an image or add captions etc. Depends how it’s used/abused in practice.
— Adam Banks (@adambanksdotcom) September 3, 2014
@paulbradshaw @ClelandThom Hmm… does that assert moral rights? These are TV people. Think of it as a channel bug, not a copyright watermark.
— Adam Banks (@adambanksdotcom) September 3, 2014
@paulbradshaw Having now properly read the dense small print grab, the derivative works provision does seem egregious.
— Adam Banks (@adambanksdotcom) September 3, 2014
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