Last night, Intermezzo posted the following on her blog
Without Prejudice - why all the Royal Opera House posts have disappeared
I was too tired last night to attempt a coherent analysis.
In a nutshell, the Royal Opera House's somewhat illiterate legal bod has written to Intermezzo instructing her to remove from her blog photographs for which the Royal Opera House holds copyright, and threatening to bar her from the House and instruct her hosting provider to delete her blog.
I support copyright law and think it is extremely important that people get the credit and income for their work. I despise pirates who make money from selling illicit copies of products and thus depriving the artists and other workers of income from legitimate commercial routes.
But Intermezzo hasn't done that! Copyright law is very clear about 'fair use', specifying how much can be reproduced as criticism and comment, and as far as I can see, that is exactly what Intermezzo has done.
In my experience the Royal Opera House is slow (I'm being kind) about the personal internet. On the one hand it seems to give out free tickets willy-nilly to anyone happy to toe the party line - and presumably will withhold them if their reviews are habitually insufficiently fawning - as long as they can prove they have a fanzine*. However, they won't co-operate with anyone who isn't in their club. Requests for Press Releases and authorised Press photos go unanswered. They clearly can't cope with people expressing opinions they cannot control!
Several people have left comments on the blogpost saying how her writings have encouraged them to go to the Royal Opera House or another similar venue. I think it is impossible to measure the impact that blogs and other 'social network' tools have on ticket sales.
Perhaps a lot of the impact is incremental: someone who was in two minds to go may be encouraged to go. Someone who would attend maybe 6 times a year yearning for more involvement, people turning virtual networking into Real Life plans to meet up and become friends. Of course, bad reviews may also deter the undecided, but I doubt that one bad review can be so influential; when a production gets many bad reviews it's probably wise not to blame the reviewers.
A great rule of thumb in life, and especially in anything legalistic is to consider the question of 'proportionality'. I cannot see any financial detriment to the ROH or financial gain** to Intermezzo from her blog nor specifically from casual use of ROH images.
They have threatened to have her blog shut down, which they probably can do if they have a sufficiently persuasive case - but that wouldn't prevent her re-starting it elsewhere, although I'm sure she has better things to do than play a tiresome game of cat-and-mouse, in her leisure time, against a multi-million pound organisation big enough to employ lawyers.
It made me laugh, though, when they threatened to bar her. Of course they do and must retain the right to refuse admission to people, and I expect from time to time they exercise it. I would imagine that this is largely for anti-social threatening or violent behaviour, and that has to be a good thing. I don't think it gives them the moral right to threaten someone capriciously.
I don't know who Intermezzo is and no one I have mentioned her to does either. I use 'her' because I have a sense this is the correct pronoun, perhaps I have a vague memory of some comment about the Ladies loos. I have occasionally tried to work out which person at a venue might be her and then later looked at her photos to confirm my guess (I've been wrong every time).
I assume that she has good reason to remain anonymous, probably work-related. For all I know, she could be the Press contact for a charity, a head-teacher, or someone else who can't afford to mix her work and leisure personae. That's entirely understandable. I know the ROH could probably obtain her details from the blog hosts. I'm not sure whether they, being American, would know they are potentially committing a criminal offence by releasing it without good reason. But that wouldn't actually prevent her attending the Royal Opera House by buying tickets via a RL friend, or in cash, or whatever.
I hope that this incident doesn't stop Intermezzo from attending the ROH, because her love of opera should transcend the stupidity of one petty flunky. Unfortunately, the ROH admin seems riddled with people who think they are running the Village Hall Flower Arranging Committee™ rather than a multi-million pound global brand. But no one should let those bungling bureaucrats destroy their enjoyment of great great music performed by often amazing artists. In a time of Austerity, and during what my Union Branch Chair has dubbed the Comprehensive Sacking Review, publicly funded organisations should be actively working to maintain the goodwill of all their friends.
Further views:
Royal Opera House loses the plot (and some grammar and spelling)
In which the Whingers support 100% the Royal Opera House clamping down on copyright infringement
To be honest, we think that hanging would be too good for intermezzo. Broken Britain we say.
Digging a hole at Covent Garden
* My professional and ethics standards - I'm a member of CIPFA and contractually obliged to adhere to IIA's standards - forbid me from taking anything that could be perceived as compromising my independence. In practice, I'd be unlikely to be disciplined for something separate from my paid work, but it would be a technical breach of these standards to accept gifts from publicly-funded bodies. And I wouldn't wish people to think I was so easily bought.
** I can't speak for her, but my hosting costs for this blog are in the region of about £100 pa. I occasionally get a very few pounds from Amazon Associates or Google Ads, but they barely reach £10 a year. I benefit from the kindness of people who were previously strangers, though not financially - I've had 'first refusal' for surplus tickets for sale, I've been sent photos and links to recordings from broadcasts (or in house recordings!) not available in the UK or on the commercial market.
