THE COLLECTIVE ADMINISTRATION OF LITERARY AND DRAMATIC RIGHTS — AUTHORS' LICENSING AND COLLECTING SOCIETY (ALCS)
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb054907 |
| Pages | 22-24 |
| Published date | 01 March 1988 |
| Date | 01 March 1988 |
| Author | Janet Hurrell |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science |
THE COLLECTIVE
ADMINISTRATION OF LITERARY
AND DRAMATIC RIGHTS -
AUTHORS' LICENSING AND
COLLECTING SOCIETY (ALCS)
by Janet Hurrell
Writers in Britain traditionally license a wide range of rights to publishers and
broadcasters, often through agents. This tradition, known as the "Anglo-American"
as opposed to the "European" tradition of licensing collectively such rights, has meant
individual negotiations, up-front money and residuals.
It was becoming obvious, however, as far back as the early 1970s that new
technologies were mitigating against every new use being handled in this way. Denis
de Freitas, Chairman of the British Copyright Council, said in 1974 that if writers
insisted on exercising individually their rights of copyright and if this placed difficulties
in the way of modern technology, the inevitable result would be that society would
remove or reduce these rights.
The battle being waged over the last two years within the EEC not to allow "free"
transmission of simultaneously cabled relays throughout the community, as spelt out
in the now notorious Green Paper, Television without Frontiers, bears witness to that
prediction.
The inability of publishers and authors to have much control over
photocopying while relying on individual permissions does likewise.
For a long time writers remained suspicious of the collective administration of their
rights even in certain areas only, but thanks to the sterling endeavours of many
individual writers, not least of whom were Brigid Brophy and Maureen Duffy, the
Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society was established in 1977, a collecting and
distributing agency for literary and dramatic rights. Since then it has widened its scope
to handle German public lending rights payments, simultaneous cabling payments
and photocopying. Were there a private rental right and a private copying right (tape
compensation), ALCS would be involved on behalf of writers.
Writers are becoming assured that they
will,
even collectively, have the right to forbid
certain uses and now accept that the societies administering the licences are ultimately
subject to the overall control of those whose rights are being administered. The
following rights are in the Memorandum and Articles:
(i) the lending right;
(ii) the reprographic right in each published work;
(iii) the private recording right;
(iv) the right to communicate the work to the public by any means of cable
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