Feasibility Study of a Digital Platform for the delivery of UK ... - BFI

UK FILM COUNCIL
importantly, it would mean that such rights on 173 titles released in 2003 are still unexploited and still in the possession of the original
filmmakers.
To clear up this issue, there seems to be a need for some kind of retrospective negotiating with the original rights holders (the
filmmakers) and a reopening of contracts on many library titles. The message from some of the distributors interviewed was that in many
cases sales agents are starting to realise the potential value of Internet rights and are minded to advise filmmakers to ‘stockpile’ rights in
an effort to hedge bets on future successful services appearing.
Interestingly, this strategy does not appear to be restricted to just sales agents alone. UK distributors seem to be viewing exploitation of
Internet rights in a very similar way --- taking advantage of the ambiguity surrounding Internet business models to await the
development of services. One such service is BSkyB’s Sky Movies Broadband platform, for which the satellite operator is now actively
acquiring rights for Internet distribution in the pay-TV window alongside its existing TV rights. According to studio sources, as well as
some leading independents such as Artificial Eye, BSkyB is now implementing new deals to take into account the potential of the Internet
(although some of the studio deals are simply being extended and construed to include Internet rights also). BSkyB is also seeking to
extend the scope of its PPV rights deals in the same vein.
What this does not change, however, is the largely untapped base of Internet VoD rights held by the original filmmakers in the
independent sector. Not only is BSkyB unlikely to change its cherry-picking approach, it also does not deal with filmmakers directly (at
least not yet). As such, anything the distributors do not hold the rights to, then neither will, by definition, BSkyB. This in many ways
creates a gap in the market. There seems to be a clear need for an on-demand aggregator of Internet rights, dealing directly with
filmmakers (or through their sales agents), on many library titles picked up by distributors already for all other media, as well as titles
that cannot find a distributor in the first place.
The issue of Internet rights is further complicated by the nature of some of the films themselves --- which highlight the vagaries of the
independent film sector overall. In the case of one high profile title, archive news footage was used in the background of a scene, for
which the rights holder was a major US broadcasting network. According to the UK distributor, the producers did not initially clear the
footage rights with the network because of time and financial restraints. When the distributor subsequently returned to the network to
retrospectively clear the rights, they were refused because the network has a blanket policy of controlling Internet rights to all of its
content worldwide. It is suspected this may not be an unusual occurrence where independent filmmaking is concerned. What is apparent
however is that a greater level of clarification is urgently needed into the availability of Internet rights in the independent sector.
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