Copyright spat between BBC and current affairs site continues as BBC says it was 'entitled' to use footage under 'fair dealing'
The BBC is facing fresh criticism after claiming it took footage from a current affairs website because it was covered by fair dealing, despite being accused of using the film out of context.
Dispute: The BBC claims it was "entitled" to use footage
Current affairs website Reel News contacted the BBC on 31 October to request footage that the broadcaster had taken from its website from a protest about blacklisting be removed from a report about the Grangemouth dispute.
The NUJ became involved after Reel News said the BBC refused to remove it or credit the footage, and a contributor to the site, Guy Smallman, has refuted new claims made by the BBC that the footage was removed on request.
“The idea that they took it down at our request is absolutely absurd,” he told The Drum. “They did not remove it from their coverage. A day after we lodged our complaint they put the report on BBC i-player.”
The BBC has claimed they were within their rights to use the footage under the fair dealing exemption of the Copyright Act.
A spokesman said: “We used a clip of Reel News footage showing a Unite demonstration in London in April 2013 taken from and credited to YouTube. We do not accept that there was any breach of copyright because there is a specific exemption in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 'fair dealing' for the purposes of reporting current events - in other words we do not need the consent of the copyright owner.
“While we believe our use of the footage was not misleading and that we were entitled to use it in this way, we removed it from our coverage after receiving a request from Reel News to do so.”
However, Reel News, backed by the NUJ, insists that the broadcaster breached their “copyright and moral” rights, and said the fact that the footage was used from a different event – one that was not a union dispute – meant that using it to accompany a story about claims of union bullying was “disingenuous”.
NUJ national freelance organiser John Toner said: “The Reel News footage at the heart of this complaint is of a different event that took place in April. Something that happened six months ago is not a current event, unless you are a Time Lord. This footage is archive material.
"The footage is attributed to YouTube. As Youtube is neither the creator nor the copyright owner, this would constitute false attribution, a moral rights question that the BBC has not addressed. They could so very easily have contacted Reel News before using the material, and one wonders why they chose not to.”
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