Review put online prompts legal threat to actor

Published Wednesday 9 May 2007 at 16:20 by Nuala Calvi

Exclusive: Performers are being urged to show copyright caution after a national newspaper threatened to charge an artist for reproducing a theatre review online.

News International contacted the individual after they posted a Sunday Times review of their Edinburgh show on a personal website.

Lawyers reportedly said the item would either have to be taken down or a fee of £400 a year would be payable.

The actor, who did not wish to be named, said: “I thought it was extraordinary. I am not a company, I am just an individual artist and it is a non-commercial site.

“I didn’t understand why it was bad for them as they were fully credited.”

Critic Ian Shuttleworth said he believed the paper had taken an “extreme position” and that the Critics’ Circle drama section was keeping an eye on the case.

“I can see in legal terms the Sunday Times are in their rights, but it’s utterly idiotic to be chasing someone quoting a review about themselves,” he said.

“That kind of reproduction is surely only of benefit to the Sunday Times.

“To charge for that is pursuing the letter of the law beyond any rationality.”

A spokeswoman for News International said the artist in question had initially been contacted via email but had not replied, provoking a more formal approach from the organisation’s lawyers.

She said the re-publication of content from the corporation’s newspapers without permission was illegal and the issue was managed on a case-by-case basis.

Sean Egan, a media lawyer at Bates Wells and Braithwaite, recommended that artists in a similar situation should include a link to the newspaper’s own website, or quote excerpts from a review rather than the whole piece.

The case could also call into question the practice of putting up copies of reviews in theatre foyers, he added.

“The Sunday Times will be the copyright owner and therefore reproduction of a review, whether online or in hard copy format in principle could be a copyright infringement,” Egan warned.