Extended Collective Licensing (ECL) is a type of licensing that allows an authorised collecting society (such as DACS) to extend an existing collective licence (such as Payback) so that it can license on behalf of all rights holders in the sector (all illustrators), except those who opt out. While traditional collective licensing relies on rights holders opting in by giving the collecting society express permission to license their works, ECL assumes that rights holders want their works to be licensed, unless they opt out. This does potentially mean that certain artworks could be included in a collective licence without the artist being aware of the situation.

ECL allows for the licensing of works in certain categories if a licensing body can get the support of its own members to approve such a scheme – and these members must represent the type of rights holders (eg illustrators) whose works would be included in an Extended Collective Licence. Primary licensing is not involved with ECL, so it would not prevent illustrators from being commissioned directly as they currently are.

AOI’s response the Governments consultation on ECL is in the AOI site’s Campaigning section here

AOI encourage illustrators to spend 5 minutes completing this survey. The aim is to establish what creators want with regards to ECL,  what opt out of any licence which is set up means in practice  and how ECL might impact on creators work.

Deadline is noon 17 June 2014

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ECL-Opt-Out-BPC