[cma-l] do you copyright programmes, materials etc?

[Two Lochs Radio]

We ask all volunteers by default to assign the copyright in any work they do 
for the radio station to it, just as they would if they were an employee of 
a commercial production company. This seems a reasonable starting position 
for anyone signing up to support the station with their voluntary work, but 
there's no automatic reason why it shouldn't be open to negotiation if they 
have good reason. Of course the position is different if someone pays to use 
the radio station's facilities for an independent production of their own..

I imagine also someone could perfectly properly assert their moral rights to 
be recognised as the author of scripts etc, without necessarily claiming 
sole rights to the audio produced.

If someone wishes to claim ownership of, for example, a music programme they 
have produced, then I would think they might also need to obtain their own 
MCPS/PPL/PRS licenses according to the use they make of commercial music in 
the programme and subsequent replay of the programme. Normally the station's 
licensing would cover these maters for material produced exclusively for it, 
but that can't be assumed if someone else wishes to hold the rights and 
physical copies for their own use.

Not an issue that has arisen for us in practice, thankfully - everyone so 
far has regarded the work they do as volunteers on our station as being to 
produce material that the station will own and use.

Alex
Two Lochs Radio