BBC
“We encounter a huge amount of copyright infringement online. Te ease with which things can be liſted, copied, cut and pasted [means] it’s very easy for people to produce websites that look entirely authentic but which are not within our editorial control or are using our copyright material in an unauthorised way. It’s extremely difficult to combat this because it’s very easy to do.”
Aside from pirated news websites, the BBC faces challenges when protecting its copyright, as well as that of others, in the TV programmes and radio shows it produces and broadcasts. In its attempts to keep pace in the fast-moving digital era, the corporation launched the iPlayer in 2007, an online TV and radio service that archives content for viewers and listeners. Te move posed obvious problems about protecting copyright, leading to a decision to restrict access to only the UK.
“We did that primarily because every programme that we put on it (which is all of our programming) has a huge amount of underlying rights sitting under it—writers' rights, performers’ rights, musicians’ rights—and so we can make only content available where we have the underlying rights. If we don’t own them then we have cleared them for that use. It was a vastly complex exercise to get to the point where we had rights sufficient to offer a seven-day catch up window on iPlayer in the UK. We’re not in a position to obtain all of the rights in all of those programmes for distribution around the world. Tis is why we put the blocking mechanism on iPlayer.”
Of course, in an age where the Internet has most of the answers to life’s questions, this doesn’t stop infringers trying their luck. Hamer says people who want to infringe are incredibly adept at doing so, despite the technical restrictions on the iPlayer, and she has come across, as one example, offshore companies offering iPlayer services to British ex-pats.
All of this sounds like a huge challenge for
the BBC: how does it possibly monitor the swathes of potential infringement online? This question is especially pertinent when Hamer mentions that the corporation mostly conducts its brand enforcement work in-house with a “small but very effective team”. Aside from her colleagues, many of the answers to tackling infringement lie further afield.
“We largely rely upon people telling us about cybersquatting and piracy. I think there’s all sorts of reasons [why they do that]. For example, people who’ve seen an advert for a commercial product that uses our brand want to find out if it’s connected to the BBC, and so they get in
22
touch with us,” she says. “We have very limited personnel resources and we are endeavouring to target only those activities that we consider to cause most damage to our brand or to the value of our copyright. We have a number of criteria for assessing that damage but we try to do as much as we can with the resources available.
“It’s great that people care enough about the BBC to either tell us when someone’s infringing or just write to us to ask ‘is this an authentic offering, because I don’t want to infringe on the BBC’s rights?’”
For an organisation that faces challenges on many fronts, such brand loyalty is essential. It is interesting to see that the BBC can attract a loyal following that keeps its eyes peeled for potential nefarious behaviour online. However, despite the goodwill, this support and the BBC’s own efforts will undoubtedly be put even more to the test in 2013. Starting in about April, the first of about 1,400 new generic top-level domains (gTLDs)
Trademarks Brands and the Internet Volume 1, Issue 4
“IT’S VERY EASY FOR PEOPLE TO PRODUCE WEBSITES THAT LOOK ENTIRELY AUTHENTIC BUT WHICH ARE NOT WITHIN OUR EDITORIAL CONTROL OR ARE USING OUR COPYRIGHT MATERIAL IN AN UNAUTHORISED WAY. ”
are expected to launch, marching into the domain name system and bringing with them a sense of fear about mass cybersquatting.
As a participant in the gTLD programme— applying for the .bbc domain—the corporation is a close observer of developments, with Hamer explaining that the challenge of protecting the BBC brand is set to increase. She says although lots of
the domains will not succeed, and
therefore will not give a cause for concern, the BBC will have to think carefully about how it will protect its brand in the future.
“Te rights protection mechanisms (RPMs) have been a source of contention for the entire time that this whole programme has been under discussion. It’s of some concern that even now that the application process has closed and people have paid large sums of money to apply for a gTLD and that their applications are being examined before launching, we still do not have a fixed and comprehensible set of RPMs,” she says. “Tere’s still discussion about whether they’re good enough, and since the outset of these there’s been a push and pull between the domainers, who want as few mechanisms as possible, and the brand owners, who want maximum rights possible. It’s been very difficult to find a successful middle ground, and that struggle goes on.”
Indeed the struggle does go on. Following a meeting in Los Angeles on November 15 between various groups at
the Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers, which is administering the gTLD programme, things may look marginally better for the BBC and other rights owners. Under the latest proposal, IP owners would be able to register their trademarks plus 50 variations (deemed ‘abusively registered’) of them in the Trademark Clearinghouse, a database of marks whose operators can warn registrants about potential cybersquatting. Tis process, under the proposal, would last for 90 days (instead of 60) aſter each new gTLD registry launches, with the option of possibly extending it for 12 months.
Such improvements may sound good for the BBC, but protecting its brand in the new gTLD space will, inevitably, incur more costs. Te Trademark Clearinghouse will not be free. Nor will the Uniform Rapid Suspension System, another RPM under the programme. For Hamer and her colleagues it will be a question of cost versus safety. It is hard to know just how much cybersquatting will increase in the new domain space, but many brands have been worried about the scope for abuse. With its self-confessed non- aggressive approach to brand enforcement, the BBC may need to start toughening up.
www.worldipreview.com
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