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In 2001, the Council of Europe adopted the European Convention for the Protection of the Audiovisual Heritage, considering that moving image material is an integral part of European cultural heritage and should be protected for posterity.
The convention describes moving image both as form of art as well as a record of our past, therefore with cultural, scientific and research possibilities. Moving material includes both cinematographic works and other recordings by whatever medium, with the only condition of of conveying an impression of movement. As a consequence, it covers television, but not radio.
The main instrument for protection is the obligation for ratifying countries to deposit material belonging to its audiovisual that has been produced or co-produced in that country. Legal deposit guarantees the existence of at least a copy of the production, plus the restoration of its material to preserve it from deterioration.
The deposit of domestic productions pertaining to each country after the entry into force of the convention is mandatory. However, the convention also promotes the voluntary deposit, for example, for foreign productions and moving images produced before the convention. Voluntary deposit also covers ancillary material, such as technical material resulting from the production (v.gr. shooting equipment), items associated with the dissemination and exploitation of moving images (v.gr. posters).
Despite the mandatory character of legal deposit, ratifying countries ultimately decide upon what is their own audiovisual heritage. Such decision should not be arbitrary or discriminatory. However, this is an implicit recognition that audiovisual heritage is first national and then European, as a combination of respective national heritages.
The deposit material must be original or a material from which the original quality can be reconstituted.
Archive bodies can be either public or private, but they cannot be controlled by anyone principally engaged in profit-making activities in the media sector.
On top of the convention, the Council of Europe adopted a protocol on the Protection of Television Productions, because of their virtually universal availability, their quantity and their role as a mirror of all sectors and aspects of society.
Television production excludes moving image material transmitted on individual demand and interactive moving image material, that is, video-on-demand (VOD) services and video-sharing platforms (VSPs) are not covered by the protocol. Given the increasing importance of VOD, multimedia and interactive products, these are covered by the provisions of the convention, but not by the protocol.
Television productions are also subject to legal deposit, but countries are explicitly allowed by the protocol to appraise, select or sample those productions that they consider belonging to their audiovisual heritage. In the case of other productions (for example, cinematographic), this consideration is implicit but not explicit. One can see here a less exhaustive quality of legal deposit for television productions.
Broadcasters may act as depository bodies, if so designated by a country, either for the productions transmitted by them or, if both sides agree, by other broadcasters. This constitutes another difference between television production and other forms of moving images, notably cinema, for which archive bodies can be private, but they cannot be controlled by anyone principally engaged in profit-making activities in the media sector, as broadcasters are.
Up to date, the convention has only been ratified by eight European Union Member States (Croatia, France, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, and the Slovak Republic), out of which the protocol has only been ratified by four (France, Germany, Lithuania, and the Slovak Republic).
Before the convention and the protocol, the Council of Europe had adopted its European Convention on Cinematographic Co-Production of 1992 to promote European cinema through cultural cooperation. This previous international agreement enjoys a much wider status of ratification, including all 27 European Union Member States.
Source of image: Trypadvisor