Newsletter
COPYRIGHT IN NEWS BROADCASTS PLAYED ON BUSES
Members of the public have often expressed doubts as to whether copyright is infringed when buses or coaches are fitted with digital television receivers, and the programs received are distributed to TV sets within the vehicles for passengers to view.
In a recent interpretation, the Intellectual Property Office noted that the Copyright Act defines "public broadcast" as communicating the content of a work to the public in sound or images by transmission via a broadcasting system of wire, wireless, or other equipment, for the purpose of direct listening or viewing reception by the public; this includes the communication of an original broadcast by any person other than the original broadcaster. When a bus or coach is fitted with digital TV reception equipment, and the wireless digital program signals received by such equipment are distributed to TV sets inside the vehicle for viewing by passengers, the program signals are first received and the sounds or images received are then distributed by means of a cable system to be played on TV equipment within the vehicle, for the viewing reception of passengers. This falls within the meaning of public broadcast under the Act, and therefore involves the "use" of whatever audiovisual, musical, recorded, or other categories of works may be included in the program content. Except within the scope of fair use as provided for by the Copyright Act, such use requires the prior consent or authorization of the owners of the economic rights in the works.
The oral and textual content of purely factual news reporting is excluded from protection under the Copyright Act. However, even if the content of programs broadcast within a bus is limited to news, news programs broadcast by TV stations generally fall within the category of audiovisual works protectable under the Act, and stations may make use of others' works of various kinds in their reports and in the programs they produce. Therefore, if a bus operator transmits news programs in its vehicles, this will not only be public broadcast of an audiovisual work, but will also involve public broadcast of any other works used in the audiovisual work. In both cases this is public broadcast of another's work, and authorization should be obtained from the owners of the economic rights in such works, or such broadcast is likely to infringe copyright.