For Utilizing Broadcast Archives: How Far “Face Censoring” Will Be Needed
Consideration Based on the Draft Guidelines on Portrait Rights Handling
2020 Volume 70 Issue 3 Pages 30-48
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2020 Volume 70 Issue 3 Pages 30-48
It has been almost seventy years since the commencement of television broadcasting. There are many calls for the establishment of rules on versatile reuse of past TV content in order to utilize a hefty number of programs stored at broadcasting stations. This article discusses the ideal way of handling portrait rights, which is a crucial task in promoting the reuse of past TV programs, centering on the “draft guidelines on portrait rights handling” announced by the Legal Framework Group of the Japan Society for Digital Archive in September 2019. The second chapter of this paper looks into major court cases including the 2005 Supreme Court ruling that presented the criteria on what constitutes portrait right infringement, which is not stipulated in the law. The third chapter examines the content of the draft guidelines, which were developed based on Supreme Court precedents and other cases, in the context of reusing broadcast programs to elucidate problems. The fourth chapter tries out the effectiveness of the draft guidelines, using NHK's past documentary programs. The final chapter presents the challenges to be solved and prospects for the future to conclude the report.
