Explosive article ...

18 Nov 1996: ©The Guardian - Page 16:- (CORRECTED) Media:

The subject TV daren't mention - Until now it has been a taboo issue. But Maureen Plantagenet goes public to accuse the big broadcasters of lifting ideas from freelances and independent production companies. And the main culprit, she says, is the BBC, which refuses to recognise the problem

(SEE Correction published 23rd December 1996 appended to this article.)

THERE is one issue in television that everyone talks about, yet no one dares go public with. That issue is the theft of ideas. Few independent production companies and freelances have not had at least one experience that led them to believe an idea they had submitted had been stolen. In fact stealing ideas is endemic in the industry - particularly by broadcasters who have their own production staff, including the BBC.

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'Rosemary', a former BBC producer, admits that she and her colleagues used to
sift through the pile of proposals from indies and freelances. Those submitting
promising ideas would be sent a reply saying 'thank you for the proposal but
unfortunately we are already working on a similar idea.' Then all the sources
outlined in the proposal would be contacted and tied in.

Another ex-BBC producer, 'Janice', says that everyone in her department
similarly nicked good ideas, and covered their activities by selecting from five
form letters her editor had on disc. One started 'Amazingly, we're already on to
this . . . '. Another said 'Thanks, but by coincidence we've been looking into
this angle for some time.' 'Judy,' another BBC employee, says that a series
editor was in the habit of taking independent proposals into staff meetings and
spreading them over a table, so that in-house staff could look at them. They
were then asked to come up with their own, subtly different version of these
ideas.

Apart from the occasional complaint, Rosemary and Janice say, they always got
away with it - partly because it is very hard to prove. It is not possible to
copyright ideas, because ideas are in the public domain and therefore accessible
to everyone. So although the producers and their commissioning editors et al
didn't think it up, or telephone and visit all the sources, check all the facts,
and then spend time and money writing up a proposal naming people who will
corroborate all the details, they could have. And because they could have, the
idea is up for grabs.

Stealing ideas is so commonplace it is considered an occupational hazard in the
industry. I have been told by indy executives that it is the price they must pay
to stay in the game, because they hope that 'next time round, they'll remember
that they owe us, and commission something.' Broadcasters steal from indies, and
they both steal from freelances.

Of those I spoke to, only Bernard Clark, who runs Clark Television, was prepared
('with sadness') to go on the record about the practice. 'I'm one of the BBC's
strongest supporters,' he says, 'but I've no doubt they steal people's ideas,
often without even realising it.'

Clark was outraged when, after his company sent a freelance's proposal on
accident trauma to BBC1's QED and got a positive response from the series
editor, a promised meeting never materialised instead QED broadcast a very
similar programme a few months later.

But he has also been on the other end of the process, when asked as an in-house
BBC producer to 'redraft' a freelance's proposal, omitting her name. He
protested to his department head, who sulkily dropped the idea. The freelance,
Jancis Robinson, took her Wine Programme to Channel 4, where it ran successfully
for several series.

After seeing his contribution to a Taking Liberties programme on plagiarism get
axed after an intervention 'high up in the BBC' (he says he would have produced
evidence of BBC idea-theft), Clark believes it is in the corporation's own
interest to 'admit it' and clean up its act. 'Over 25 years I've learnt that the
same people come up with the good ideas time after time. If they feel they're
being cheated - rightly or wrongly - they'll simply stop sending their ideas to
the BBC.'

That others are less willing to speak openly is unsurprising, when to blow the
whistle is to risk never getting work again. So the brown-nosing, back-stabbing
and exploitation continues, and behind it is the economics of it all. To indies
the production fee for a single documentary, up to pounds 15,000, can represent
the difference between staying in or going out of business. For a freelance, the
theft of just one idea can mean the difference between an annual income, and no
income at all.

Last month, the BBC agreed a settlement with the writer Tony Collins, whose book
Open Verdict chronicles the suspicious deaths of 25 defence researchers. Two
years after sending a dramatisation to the BBC, he was amazed to see an episode
of Between The Lines with striking parallels to it.

But only one case has ever been fought and won in the courts, over the seventies
ITV series Rock Follies. This established that Thames TV had used an original
proposal for a drama about a girl band as a 'springboard' for their own ideas,
and substantial damages were paid out.

The prohibitive cost of litigation is often a key factor in other actions being
dropped. 'Mark' wanted to sue over what he saw as a clear case of theft of a
series idea he had proposed (three years after turning it down despite calling
it 'a potential blockbuster', the BBC made the series without him). Mark's
lawyer advised him that his costs could exceed pounds 100,000, with the BBC
weighing in with expensive lawyers funded by the licence-fee. Were he to win,
his damages might only amount to pounds 30,000.

This is just one of many anecdotal stories from victims whose names I have
changed to protect their chances of getting work in the future. There is
'Marianne', who found that whole passages from her book had been lifted without
her permission by a producer who went on to win accolades for her story. There's
'Hamid' who was told that his idea for a series based on an explorer's
adventures was 'not a priority' and later saw it broadcast under the same name
by a BBC documentary series. There's 'Andy' who created one of TV's best-loved
comic characters in a televised sketch, only to see it run and run as a series
with full credits going to the person who stole it.

And then there's me, who was told to believe that an idea I submitted while
working with the BBC as a specialist researcher on another programme, was given
to them by 'someone else' at exactly the same time, completely coincidentally.
My main contact, whom I had found by reading academic papers in science
libraries, was telephoned within days of me handing in my proposal, by someone
who was 'just fishing for ideas and knew nothing about the subject.'

When I asked to see evidence that the programme had indeed been, as they
claimed, in progress before I submitted my idea, my employment as a specialist
researcher was immediately terminated. The explanation was that 'a breach of
trust' had occurred. This is quite ironic considering that in the context of
employment law, sacking on account of a breach of trust normally implies that
the employer has lost trust in the employee - not the other way round! I have
still not been shown the evidence that I requested, but I have received
telephone calls, which I have taped, from the producer in the department whom I
gave my idea to, assuring me that 'no one in the BBC will ever employ you
again!'

In a business where job insecurity is rife, contributions from freelances and
indies threaten the jobs of permanent staff. But if fresh talent is being
squandered at the expense of keeping time-serving staff in work, the result must
mean a lowering in the quality of programmes - which probably explains all the
back-biting that is going on right now.

Most professions attempt to clean themselves up, even if it is by
self-regulation. They operate according to a code of conduct that lays down what
is illicit and unethical. Although self-regulation is open to charges of
whitewashing, it is better than nothing, and nothing is more or less what we
have in the British media today. Attempts have been made in the past to address
the issue of theft of ideas by insisting that broadcasters separate
commissioning from production, but the results are more of an acknowledgement of
the existence of the problem than a solution.

In fact these problems were highlighted when Pact (the trade association for
indies) ran a survey of its members: they rated the BBC as the slowest, least
efficient and least ethical programme buyer. It was also judged to be the most
likely broadcaster to steal, recycle, or pass on proposals. It is truly
disgraceful that these companies, especially the publicly-funded BBC, should
behave in such a dishonourable way. What makes it all the more reprehensible is
the fact that they position themselves on the moral high-ground and claim the
right to expose duplicity everywhere else. It is the worst type of hypocrisy.

So what will be the vehicle for change? An internal memo asserting that the
theft of intellectual property will be met with instant dismissal? Independent
inquiries replacing the policy of automatic denial? A theft-proof scheme for
registering all ideas? Who knows? But if indies tally up their losses and
realise that the price of silence is just too high, perhaps they will decide to
stand up and be counted. It would certainly be a step in the right direction if
they pledged at the very least not to indulge in it themselves!

In the meantime if anyone reading this article suspects, or has evidence that a
programme that they submitted was stolen, please write to me, c/o Media
Guardian.

Correction (published 23rd December 1996).

Elizabeth Clough

In our article 'The subject TV daren't mention' on November 18, we referred to a
contribution to a Taking Liberties programme being axed after an intervention
high up in the BBC. We understand that in fact the decision was taken by the
programme editor, Elizabeth Clough, after consultation with the producer and the
assistant producer and we accept that the decision was taken after proper
consideration of editorial factors. No criticism of Elizabeth Clough was
suggested in our article, and we apologise to Ms Clough if it was thought any
was implied.

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So - what do you think about that then ...?

Back in 1998, when my own 'theft-event' occurred, I hadn't seen M Plantagenet's piece...

Later on I caught up with her story. In 1998 Maureen Plantagenet joined me at Edinburgh GEITF to talk to the audience, who seemed vastly entertained. The 300 TV pro's and lawyers who listened in riveted silence and then applauded at the end of our outrages...Maureen Plantagenet's contribution at Edinburgh included also waving thick wads of letters she had received following her 1996 article - and then attacking the TV Top Executives' Panel about them...So this is her own contribution to this site. As an author. This national newspaper article speaks in louder volumes for her experiences than can this site ..(TOP)