Do you think the beeb will make more of COTW archive available?......

[pastoralguy]

That seems likely! What I was wondering was, does the Beeb retain copyright over broadcasts it has wiped from is own archives? If not, I would have thought they would have difficulty stopping anybody who wanted to releasing them, since it would be difficult to establish who broke the original copyright.

A good point but I'm sure the Beeb will have wall to wall lawyers who would probably relish putting that situation go the test.

[seabright]

That seems likely! What I was wondering was, does the Beeb retain copyright over broadcasts it has wiped from is own archives? If not, I would have thought they would have difficulty stopping anybody who wanted to releasing them, since it would be difficult to establish who broke the original copyright.

That's an interesting question! The EU Directive 2011/77/EU on Sound Recordings, which came into effect on 1 November 2013 and extended the copyright on sound recordings not yet in the public domain from 50 to 70 years, has this to say under 'Overview': "The first owner of the copyright in a sound recording is usually the record producer." Two paragraphs later it states: "Sound recordings do not have to be original works but they will not be new copyright works if they have been merely copied from existing sound recordings."

So let's assume the BBC had taped a broadcast, but then wiped it and thus no longer owned it in any shape or form. However, if a listener at home had recorded it on cassette or open-reel tape, and a record company were then to issue a CD of the broadcast from that cassette or tape, could the BBC claim copyright in something that was a "copy," their original being no longer in existence?

Well, if the broadcast had been transmitted before the end of 1962 the answer is no, because under these new EU Regulations, all recordings and broadcasts from that year went into the public domain at the end of 2012, 50 years later and a year before the new regulations came into force. In other words, if you have any interesting pre-1963 Proms or other BBC broadcasts on tape that deserve an outing, you'd be quite in the clear legally if you wanted to release them on CD. Time to ransack those cassette drawers, I think!

[pastoralguy]

Thank you for that, seabright. Very interesting.

[Serial_Apologist]

That's an interesting question! The EU Directive 2011/77/EU on Sound Recordings, which came into effect on 1 November 2013 and extended the copyright on sound recordings not yet in the public domain from 50 to 70 years, has this to say under 'Overview': "The first owner of the copyright in a sound recording is usually the record producer." Two paragraphs later it states: "Sound recordings do not have to be original works but they will not be new copyright works if they have been merely copied from existing sound recordings."

So let's assume the BBC had taped a broadcast, but then wiped it and thus no longer owned it in any shape or form. However, if a listener at home had recorded it on cassette or open-reel tape, and a record company were then to issue a CD of the broadcast from that cassette or tape, could the BBC claim copyright in something that was a "copy," their original being no longer in existence?

Well, if the broadcast had been transmitted before the end of 1962 the answer is no, because under these new EU Regulations, all recordings and broadcasts from that year went into the public domain at the end of 2012, 50 years later and a year before the new regulations came into force. In other words, if you have any interesting pre-1963 Proms or other BBC broadcasts on tape that deserve an outing, you'd be quite in the clear legally if you wanted to release them on CD. Time to ransack those cassette drawers, I think!

Thanks - that sounds about right. Unfortunately, if true, it would mean that Jon and Barbara would have to wait until 2028 to release the Paraphernalia broadcasts I had in mind as recordings. I think I'll advise them to hang on in there, as both of them will be well into the eighties by that date!