IP Rights

A large part of what has driven the hugely impressive growth in the independent production sector is directly attributable to producers owning their own Intellectual Property (IP) rights.  One of the key areas of campaigning at Pact is therefore protecting producers’ IP rights and demonstrating to the widest constituency of stakeholders, how vital these rights are.

Background

Prior to the Communications Act of 2003, UK producers did not own their own rights, instead these were owned by the broadcasters. Pact made the case to government that  rights, instead of being exploited for their proper value, were being “warehoused” by broadcasters who showed little enthusiasm to exploit them.  The UK market for IP exploitation at this time was therefore very small. 

The UK independent television sector is now one of the fastest growing parts of the creative industries. Since 2003, the sector has become one of the biggest in the world, competing successfully (even the US market) where US network television's schedules are filled with British shows.

Since 2003, total exports of UK television content have more than doubled. The independent sector, in turn, is using much of the revenue from those sales to help fund the production of UK programmes, spending up to £200m per year in the creation of UK television content.  That's more than some of the UK’s major broadcasters.

Since 2003 too, the independent television production sector has increased turnover by 40%. It now employs more people than the broadcasting divisions of the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five combined.

What we do

Recently we contributed to the Hargreaves Review and - on an ongoing basis - are liasing closely with a number of external agencies in the run up to the new Communications Act to ensure future leglislation properly values Intellectutal Property in the UK.