16 August 2018

Dear Mr Salmond,

Thank you for your further e-mail of 14 August.

Addressing your two questions in turn; firstly as I’m sure you are aware the BBC divides its operations across the whole of the UK. In the case of the BBC’s intellectual property team, this is based in London.

As I mentioned in my previous e-mail, the BBC deals with complaints concerning the mis-use of its content from across the world (mainly due to the mis-use of BBC content on social media platforms) and it is not practical to engage each at a divisional level.

In this instance, since the content was deemed to infringe the BBC’s copyright on a legal/rights analysis, BBC Scotland was not engaged in the original reports to YouTube. We will be reviewing our current approach as part of our internal review.

In relation to your second question, members of the public routinely bring issues concerning the mis-use of BBC content to our attention in a variety of ways. Sometimes those communications are very obviously complaints (“This person is infringing BBC intellectual property…” etc.), and sometimes they are concerned enquiries (“I noticed this website has a lot of BBC videos, is this allowed?” etc.).

We used the term “complaints” generally to refer to situations where potential infringement is brought to our attention.

In Mr Arthur’s case, we have been absolutely clear that he did not complain (indeed he was himself the subject of the original complaint, which was investigated and the BBC took action against him to remove content from his YouTube channel) but rather he noted that various YouTube channels were examples he had referred to in determining whether his own use of BBC content was “fair”.

Because those channels had been brought to our attention and certain content on each was deemed to infringe the BBC’s copyright, reports were filed through YouTube’s takedown procedure.

As I have previously explained, usually where a complaint of mis-use of BBC content has been investigated at a legal and rights level and confirmed to be infringing use we will report that use directly to the relevant platform (e.g. YouTube). However, in certain limited circumstances, we will exercise our discretion in contacting the channel owner directly.

There may be a number of reasons why we would exercise such discretion but one such reason is where the account is run by a democratic party or elected official and is used for public purposes (such as in this case communicating with constituents) and not merely for personal use.

We do not currently have any central database recording all infringing content on individual channels that has been taken down over the last 12 months however, we can confirm that we have taken action across the political spectrum, including where political parties have used BBC content in a manner which may suggest to the public that there is any connection or endorsement between the BBC and that party.

I hope that this answers your questions.

Yours sincerely,

Phil Harrold

BBC Company Secretary