The BBC belongs in almost every category here, having much previous history for trying to impose rights grabbing contracts on contributors to magazines, umpteen photo competition rights grabs, and also annexing all user-contributed material. They are also widely regarded among professionals as serial infringers of copyright, and determined wrigglers over payment where infringement has occurred. As a paragon of British culture and with a worldwide reputation for integrity as a broadcaster you'd hope for ethics that were a little more scrupulous, but the Beeb seems to interpret it's publically-funded status as a duty to the taxpayer to try and restrain costs by ripping off photographers.
The BBC terms and conditions have changed over the years in response to repeated outrage in their own forums, but the changes have been largely cosmetic. Quite often, a specific programme or project will invite submission under summary terms that sound quite reasonable (and usually begin with the dissembling statement that 'you retain full copyright'), but there will be a link through to the full set at www.bbc.co.uk/terms
These are still a rights grab, despite the baloney about you retaining copyright. Yes, you do, but the BBC's reach and ability to distribute your material renders your copyright effectively worthless in any other channel.
Contributions to the BBC
6. By sharing any contribution (including any text, photographs, graphics, video or audio) with the BBC you agree to grant to the BBC, free of charge, permission to use the material in any way it wants (including modifying and adapting it for operational and editorial reasons) for BBC services in any media worldwide (including on the BBC's site accessed by international users). In certain circumstance the BBC may also share your contribution with trusted third parties*.
7. Copyright in your contribution will remain with you and this permission is not exclusive, so you can continue to use the material in any way including allowing others to use it.
8. In order that the BBC can use your contribution, you confirm that your contribution is your own original work, is not defamatory and does not infringe any UK laws, that you have the right to give the BBC permission to use it for the purposes specified above, and that you have the consent of anyone who is identifiable in your contribution or the consent of their parent / guardian if they are under 16.
9. We normally show your name with your contribution, unless you request otherwise, but for operational reasons this is not always possible. The BBC may need to contact you for administrative or verification purposes in relation to your contribution, or in relation to particular projects. For full details of when and how we may contact you please see the BBC's Privacy Policy plus any local terms where applicable.
10. Please do not endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or break any laws when creating content you may share with the BBC.
11. If you do not want to grant the BBC the permission set out above on these terms, please do not submit or share your contribution to or with bbc.co.uk.
*In the case of news-related material please note that this may be shared with the BBC's overseas partners; these are all reputable foreign news broadcasters who are prohibited from altering the material in any way or providing it to other UK broadcasters or to the print media.
That last par is interesting, as it carries the inference that BBC overseas partners may be free to pass on material to non-UK broadcasters and print media.
Correct. Whenever checked, BBC websites have been found to have removed metadata from all photos published, creating hundreds of orphan works every week.
Despite this industrial illegality and contempt for creators' rights the BBC has been one of the leading lobbyists for rights to use orphan works over the past 7 years. They claim that vast cultural riches are inaccessible to the public because of untraceable ownership.
If the law permitted anyone to take and use any car that had "lost" its numberplates there would be an outcry. Yet here is the BBC begging for a similar right to use anonymised photos, screwdriver in hand.
This is exactly why photographer groups have demanded enforceable, more comprehensive moral rights as a quid pro quo for any rights to utilise orphans. Unless we have mandatory bylines, and a duty of care toward metadata, allowing orphan use is an incentive to create orphans. Every Government review, including the latest, Hargreaves, has ignored this obvious and rational point.
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In addition, it is said that the BBC strips all metadata and copyright information from the pictures that people upload.
from this site (here: http://copyrightaction.com/faq/ ) this is illegal:
"Deliberately altering copyright metadata is an offence under UK and US law."
Personally, we don't agree with the BBC T&Cs and in fact see it as an attempt by them to avoid needing professional photographers and paying them for their work, so we don't give them any of our work under any conditions.
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