Right On! The IP Debate...

[Claire-Frances Lennon]

This audio feature available via the 4Talent Scotland website focuses on Intellectual Property Rights and the TV industry, who owns what and why...

However, during an interview with PACT, Chief Executive John McVay expresses a concern about 4ip in relation to the first contracts that have been issued.

The feature also includes interviews with April Chamberlain MD of The Comedy Unit and Bryan Elsley Writer/Creator of e4's Skins about their experience with digital commissioning and IP exploitation issues...

Listen here from the 4Talent Scotland TV Zone Features.

CF

[Damien Smith]

Also points of interest in the BBC Frameworks (drawn up with PACT) for Future Media commissions. Splits commissions into 5 types of projects and guides guidance on the types of rights assignments expected. A very earlier stab at something similar to the Terms of Trade for TV.

Available here (the snappily titled 'asset 3051', 'asset 3052' and 'asset 3063')
http://www.pact.co.uk/detail.asp?id=6298

[Stuart Cosgrove]

If you are looking to joint-venture on a digital media project and want some free advice, and a decent legal template, then you can't beat the recently published agreements that Pact and NESTA released. They are desrcibed as " a range of tools designed to make it easy for TV and Film producers to work with digital producers on convergent or multi-platform projects."

A great example of PACT's purposeful work for their members.

You can source them here:



http://www.pact.co.uk/detail.asp?id=6412

[Ewan McIntosh]

A day spent offline with gaming companies, academics, researchers, coders and programmers in Dundee and look what happens - a fascinating debate I'd have loved to take part in! :-) Happily, though, the main points have been covered.

I'll admit to being surprised that I had issued contracts. I've heard of being so good at something that you can do it in your sleep, but I really wasn't aware of either. The comments reveal a repeated fashion for "stating fact" that just isn't true. 4iP is breaking a lot of moulds, which means people's assumptions are being challenged on a daily basis, except that instead of being challenged they are merely repeating what they know from a previous era. The IP bit in 4iP refers to Innovation for the Public, arguably Internet Protocol, and if it refers to IP it's verging more on the element of choice as to how that is exploited. For me, IP only becomes really interesting when we're taking out equity in your company. Otherwise, I just want great ideas that have the potential to change people's lives. Where they might make a penny or two, we'd verge on profit share, I think, more than wrangling over who owns the idea.

On another point, though, 4iP is very definitely set up to lower the bar to entry. But one of the things 4iP is for is for helping companies 'date', and come together on projects. I'm guilty of having had plenty of great ideas that I've had t bring partners in on to turn into a reality. It's called collaboration. It comes from Hollywood films of the 50s and 60s when they realised that they produced better products by bringing in the best of breed to help turn idea to reality.

4iP's not just attracting ideas people either, but gangs of coders and filmmakers for hire who, given the right idea, have the chance to flourish in their own right, not as some anonymous cruncher in the background.

This should be reason to celebrate, but as with every group, organisation or community in which I have worked, this kind of erosion is hard for old hierarchies to handle. Not impossible, though...

Some of your questions answered:
If small businesses own IP and do not have the experience, knowledge or capabilities to exploit it does it have any value?
Yes, if they can find, in safety and without lawyers to protect their idea, a partner company with whom to turn the idea into reality.

Who is best placed to do this?
4iP and Channel 4 - we don't make anything, we have no interest in simply owning IP without you (what would we do it? It really would be worthless). This means that your idea, when submitted to us, belongs to you and we'll respect that, where others would have the potential and interest in trying to develop it.

This then points to the question of the broadcasters role? What is the role of 4ip? Is it to own lots of IP?
No.

If it is not going to own the IP of the projects it is investing in, then what is in it for 4ip?=
We want to help produce ideas that will change the lives of people in Britain, something we believe the market has failed at doing without the crux of the telly.

And what happens to the projects when funding is stopped?
Funding is a catalyst. We look at the business case, a way for the producer to keep producing through income (advertising, sponsorship, subscription, freemium/premium, a public body buying over the responsibility...)

Is the IP given back? Can IP ownership be split 50/50?
We may never own the IP, but future revenues for a period of x months or years could be shared on the project. The nuts and bolts are negotiated at the beginning of working together, as we form your business plan.

[Ivan Pope]

Stuart touches on a key issue when he says "Probably 90% of the companies registered with this site are more likely to grow through incremental value - being hired, commissioned, or through building repeat business. ... the key drivers of business growth from small beginnings are reputation, networks, achievement, visibility in the market, contented clients etc etc."
My belief in the potential of 4iP is that it will understand the awesome power of the commission that allows experimental/commercial/new form work to be created in this social network space. I'm hopeful that we'll see a new industry emerge that is similar to historic 'indies' in attitude or approach and which finds clients who will themselves be finding the value in the commission that isn't a marketing, sales or business necessisity, but is that rarest of things - a creative product.

[Claire-Frances Lennon]

4ip has the potential to be revolutionary and the fact it is actually happening is a credit to you and to Channel 4. I hope it means work for companies, communities and individuals outside London and that interesting, genuine and exciting projects engage with audiences. I'm far too much of a true weegie to stay away too long!

best,

CF

PS Big thanx to 4Talent Scotland for everything xxx

[Stuart Cosgrove]

Don't stay away too long Claire - and keep posting. Let me know when your settled in London.

[Claire-Frances Lennon]

I find this whole debate fascinating as it seems to cut right to through to the heart of the media industry and all of the dynamics and opportunities that that brings. Personally, I am only interested in developing ideas, partnerships and projects and so communication is the only why to achieve this. I also think that working within a team or community helps iron out all issues and concerns which I hope is what happens here.

I am off to London for a few months to work on developing online communications strategies for the Government and hope to take much of the 38mintues experience with me. I look forward to hearing more about the commissioning and the structures of the projects in due course.

CF

[Stuart Cosgrove]

..."the concern I think being expressed is that 4ip is lowering the barriers into the industry for some small, less experienced creative companies or individuals with little business savy, in order to buy their IPs - possibility their only assets."

So many issues so little time. 4iP has several corporate purposes at C4 "extracting IP from start-ups" is not among them. I've dedicated a year of my life to building the idea and that has never been suggested by anyone, anywhere, in any form - either inside or outside of C4. And as you can imagine Claire, I know quite a few cynics.

More seriously, if the challenge is how micro-businesses grow then IP is not necesarrily where I'd start. It is often a very imprecise and over-heated issue. Probably 90% of the companies registered with this site are more likely to grow through incremental value - being hired, commissioned, or through building repeat business. If IP has a value then by all means define it, shape it and grow it. But the key drivers of business growth from small beginnings are reputation, networks, achievement, visibility in the market, contented clients etc etc.

Since its been raised, and in the spirit of trust, I should make it clear that no staff member at Channel 4 directly benefits from any project we commission, and could/would not benefit from securing IPR, whoever the owner or whatever the share or revenues. They are not required or incentivised to pursue IPR except to 'clear' great ideas for transmission, distribution and exchange, almost always on a limited license basis.

Channel 4 staff are required by our protocols to apply a self-denying ordinance we are not even credited as executives of our own projects, unlike BBC, Scottish Screen, the Film Council. (And unlike every commercial super-indie who are by some distance the major IPR owners in UK television and who I repeat, have not put a penny into 4iP).

If you have any personal doubts do speak to me - but be assured that 4iP will not be measured by the accrual of IPR - it isn't even in our basic success criteria.

[Dave Brown | cross-platform director/producer]

Hi Claire,


“…so online does the fact that I can prove exact time and details of my post automatically confirm my copyright ownership of the ideas?”


I don't want to be Mr Negative, but in my experience, proving ownership over ideas is not the biggest hurdle. If you have your IP properly nailed down and another company decides to rip it off, the big problem you face is ‘risk’ ...risk in relation to the legal cost of defending your IP.

This happened to me most recently in 2006, when a larger company blatantly copied my company’s IP. I probably would have won the case, but I'd have had to finance substantial legal fees until then; only retrospectively (potentially) recovering my costs. However, there was no rubber-stamped guarantee that I was going to win, and no guarantee that I’d have been awarded my costs …and if I'd lost, it was conceivable that my opponents could be awarded costs. So I was faced with a potential downside measured in hundreds of thousands of pounds.

As for trying to protect yourself through NDA’s, secrecy docs etc, I doubt their effectiveness. If someone’s going to rip you off these documents won’t stop them. You have to be careful who you talk to, and somehow find a balance between getting your idea out there and protecting your rights.

For me, this is one of the conundrums of so-called crowd-sourcing solutions. Once your idea is out in the public domain it’s almost impossible to protect, so maybe there’s an inherent reluctance for individuals to contribute their best ideas to an open environment.

[Claire-Frances Lennon]

Thanks for this Stuart, really enjoyed making it. It was a shame not to get a broadcaster's point of view not only in relation to 4ip, but also on digital commissioning for TV. However, good to discuss points raised in this space. The piece is focused on TV and not really about 4ip but the issues raised I thought were interesting. Although it may be sounding a bit para, the concern I think being expressed is that 4ip is lowering the barriers into the industry for some small, less experienced creative companies or individuals with little business savy, in order to buy their IPs - possibility their only assets. Therefore, the creative control of ideas and exploitation of various aspects of the IP. This approach also does seem to sound very pre-2003 Communications Act, from what I understand of it. However, if small businesses own IP and do not have the experience, knowledge or capabilities to exploit it does it have any value? Who is best placed to do this? This then points to the question of the broadcasters role? What is the role of 4ip? Is it to own lots of IP? If it is not going to own the IP of the projects it is investing in, then what is in it for 4ip? And what happens to the projects when funding is stopped? Is the IP given back? Can IP ownership be slit 50/50? What's the nuts and bolts etc...

My experiment of putting ideas into the public domain has enabled me to be in contact with a whole variety of businesses and individuals that I hope can help develop projects together in the future. However, this also brings the question of when does copyright begin? In music copyright starts on manuscript not on a recording, so online does the fact that I can prove exact time and details of my post automatically confirm my copyright ownership of the ideas?

CF