The ABC has admitted it broke its own policies by providing footage used by the Yes camp’s “You’re the Voice” referendum advertisement.
On Thursday, an ABC spokesperson confirmed that the public broadcaster’s commercial arm was responsible for licensing 26 seconds of visual footage and five seconds of audio used in the Uluru Dialogue’s advertisement released over the weekend.
“This was done in error as it does not meet our policy on the use of ABC archival footage and is regrettable,” they said.
Two years ago, the ABC published a webpage “Can ABC content be used in Political Advertising and Political Messaging?”, which states that ABC content, logos or any other intellectual property should not be used in political advertising or political messaging.
The spokesperson said the ABC will be updating licensing processes to avoid this situation in the future.
The footage comes at the start of the two-minute John Farnham-backed video that’s part of a nationwide advertising blitz to help the ailing Yes campaign.
The opening moments of the video feature a vintage television set showing archival footage from the 1967 referendum.
Earlier this week, Oliver Lawrence, the managing director of the advertisement’s production company, Photoplay, told Crikey that footage in the advertisement had been obtained through the ABC’s commercial licensing arm, Library Sales. The ABC was contacted for comment on Wednesday morning but did not provide a response until Thursday afternoon.
Lisa Savage, the owner of Savage Media, which is listed as procuring the archival footage, said she was unable to comment due to a non-disclosure agreement.
A logo belonging to digitising business Australian Television Archive was visible on the archival footage in the advertisements. However, the advertising firm behind the campaign, The Monkeys, said that this logo was erroneously placed on the footage but did not answer questions about why the mistake occurred.
Australian Television Archive owner James Paterson (not the Liberal senator) said he had no idea why his logo was used and had nothing to do with the footage.
What utter bollocks……………….
The referendum on the Voice was never supposed to be “Political”.
Until the Barbarians in the LNP decided they could score a few points by making it so…………
Time for the ABC to quit apologizing for ANYTHING.
I find this bizarre as it’s archival footage. It is clearly not the ABC taking a political stance on an issue and is instead the Voice Ad using primary source footage to construct their argument. The ABC owns the footage, but it was broadcast in the public sphere. Unless there was an alternative, where were the creators meant to go to obtain the footage?
What I would really like to know is who complained?……………..
Dutton?
HWMNBN?
Crikey? The only place I’ve seen any fuss about this footage release is on this site.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/complaints-over-abc-stories-claiming-aboriginals-classified-under-flora-and-fauna-laws/news-story/d5099ed3fd068ad98c200929df2b5719
The usual suspects, the IPA and Murdock
There is no slight so inoffensive, no error so small, no mistake so old, that the No camp can’t use it to bash Labor or the ABC. It is a point of pride, a reflex, an art in miniscule vindictive, like searching the entire house for a lone buzzing mosquito.
Get it right Frank – “Buzzing Racist”.
As much to the point why has archival news footage shot by the state owned national broadcaster been commercialised. Especially from that long ago. It should just be publicly available as a public asset, like reports by statutory authorities or budget papers. I can understand some element of copyright, say 5 years and a longer caveat regarding commercial use but this footage should be an accessible public asset surely? Other views welcome regarding what I might be missing.
The “commercialization” was probably a by-product of the LNP’s relentless funding cuts……………
I’d agree anything after some reasonable time should be Public Domain.
As someone who thinks copyright across the board shouldn’t be much more than 5-10 years, absolutely anything produced on the public dime should be free for non-commercial use.
Which has reminded me of another outrage I experienced this week – you have to pay to access the Australian Standards documents, and not just a nominal amount.
Standards Australia is not, as far as I know, an arm of government but a NFP whose only income is from the sale of Standards
It’s a bit of a half-breed……………
……started off as an association born of necessity, was gazetted by government in 1922, was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1951, in 1988 signed an MOU with the government who recognised it as the peak non-government developer of standards, then in the frenzy of privatizations in 1999 became a company limited by guarantee and floated on the Stock Exchange in 2003.
Hence the requirement for payments…………….
If I was running the Yes campaign, I’d actually be arguing that under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) as a Government instrumentality, the ABC copyright in the material in question (having been broadcast in 1967) expired in 2017.
Although the general rule for copyright in Text, Images and Music is that it persists for 70 years, there are specific (and different) terms for audiovisual content, and content “made for, or first published by, government”.
I don’t think this precise situation has ever been litigated, but it would be worth a run (just for fun).
Whether or not the ABC could arbitrarily decide to restrict the usage of content it has control over, but which is in the public domain, is an interesting question.
Is the referendum a political campiagn? It seems to have become one.
Political? Is this from the same lot that made such a fuss about the ticks and crosses in the yes and no boxes?
What a total crock. It’s archival
Footage. Not advertising. About time the abc leadership showed some intestinal fortitude and stood up to bullying.