See also Section 6 on sound recordings and Section 7 on films.

Definition

What is the definition of a broadcast?

The definition of a broadcast is ‘an electronic transmission of visual images, sounds or other information which is transmitted for simultaneous reception by members of the public and is capable of lawfully being received by them or is transmitted at a time determined solely by the person making the transmission for presentation to members of the public’.

What about the content of the broadcast?

This is protected quite separately. For example, a modern play is broadcast on radio or TV. The copyright in the play and the performing rights of the actors are all treated separately but the electronic signal that carries the programme attracts rights as a broadcast.

Some people used to say that websites were broadcasting. Is this still true?

No. The law specifically states that any internet transmission is excluded from the definition of a broadcast unless it is:

This is rather wordy so some examples might help. A film is being shown on TV and simultaneously can be watched on your PC via the internet; a horse race can be watched on both TV and via the internet on your PC; a website is designed so that you can view and listen to items on it only at times fixed by the website manager. In all these cases transmission is considered as a broadcast, not internet transmission. As mentioned in Section 4, in a nutshell, broadcasting takes precedence over internet transmission when determining the status of a transmitted work.

What about services where you can listen to a programme later on rather than when actually transmitted?

Services such as BBC iPlayer are not broadcasts as such, but the content of them is protected as copyright works which have been communicated to the public by electronic means.