Thanks to everyone who wrote to their MPs over the last few weeks to ask them to object to Pete Wishart’s Private Members Bill to extend copyright term.

I’m pleased to report that an honourable member did indeed object to the Bill when it came round. He is as yet unidentified (although Hansard will hopefully reveal all over the weekend). You can spot him on the far left of the screen, sitting in the front row of the Labour benches at exactly 04:56:57 in this video of the day’s proceedings in the Commons. Look closely - is that your elected representative standing up for your rights?

Because there was no time debate the Bill, the second reading will happen again next Friday. So there’s still time to write to your MP and ask him or her to represent you on this issue. And if you haven’t already, please do sign our petition against copyright term extension in Europe.

I’m pleased to announce today the launch of a Europe-wide campaign against the extension of copyright term. Thanks to ORG volunteers, and some very nice people I met at FOSDEM, the new campaign site - soundcopyright.eu - is available in English, French and German.

Please visit the site, and sign the petition.

The recording industry has been lobbying for copyright term extension in sound recordings for many years. In the UK, the Government commissioned an independent study to examine whether term extension was a good idea for the UK creative economy. The review found that all the evidence pointed against extending term, and based on this, the UK government rejected the recording industry’s call for an extension.

Now the recording industry has taken its fight to Europe, and it looks like they’re winning - Commissioner Charlie McCreevy announced in February that he intends to extend the copyright term in sound recordings from 50 to 95 years. This is surprising, since the Commissioner’s own Internal Market Directorate have also published evidence that shows that the arguments in favour of extending term lacked substance, especially compared to the reasons for maintaining the status quo.

If you care about this issue, please sign our petition, which states simply:

The following individuals state their opposition to a copyright term extension for sound recordings.

We ask the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers to ensure that policy in this area reflects all concerned stakeholders, including consumer and public interest organisations, and not just the commercial rights-holders who advocate for extended copyright term.

It’s time for European citizens to get their voices heard in this debate. Back in 2006, over 1,000 people signed ORG’s petition asking the UK government to reject term extension - and it worked. We want ten times that many to sign this new Europe-wide petition. So please, tell as many people as you can about our campaign to stop copyright term extension in Europe. We’ll use your support to lobby individual Commissioners, and to ensure that this misguided policy is rejected.

Together, we will stop copyright term extension.

European Commissioner Charlie McCreevy may have surprised us with his rogue call for copyright term extension from Brussels last week, but there are battles to be fought closer to home, too.

On 7 March, a Private Member’s Bill proposed by Pete Wishart MP will have its second reading in the House of Commons. It is vital that you write to your MP now to ask him or her to attend the Commons on 7 March and stand up and object to this Bill. If you don’t the Bill is likely to pass through to committee stage without debate.

What can you say to persuade your MP to show up to the Commons on a Friday? Perhaps you might point out that all the economic evidence points against term extension. Or that every other UK citizen is expected to contribute to their pension out of income earned in their working life. Or that retrospectively extending copyright term won’t encourage Elvis Presley to record any more new tracks. Or that if governments continue to draft intellectual property legislation on behalf of special interest groups, it will only further erode the respect that ordinary citizens have for the letter of the law.

However you choose to pitch it, you should find the ORG briefing pack on copyright term extension useful. And remember to specifically ask your MP to oppose this Bill on 7 March in the House of Commons. Writing to your MP doesn’t take long, and we’ve developed a handy guide to help you get the results you want.

And as for the European front, expect news very soon of how you can get your voice heard as an EU citizen. Together, we can stop copyright term extension, but only if we take action!

When the government mailed half the nation’s bank details to the darknet at the end of last year, it looked like 2008 was going to be the year privacy issues hit the headlines. But, when it comes to digital rights stories, privacy has been seeing stiff competition from that old foe of the digital society: regressive intellectual property policy.

At the beginning of this week, The Times leaked a DCMS document that promised tough action on illicit filesharers via a disproportionate and ineffective “3 strikes and you’re out” model of disconnection.

Then yesterday, over in Brussels, Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy resurrected the zombie of copyright term extension in sound recordings. McCreevy said he “had not seen a convincing reason” why term should not be extended from 50 to 95 years. Must we therefore conclude that he has not read the research commissioned by his own Directorate that shows that term extension makes no sense?

The UK has already come out against copyright term extension. To find out why copyright term extension is a non-starter for the UK’s creative economy, download the Open Rights Group briefing pack.

If you’re feeling the need to brush up on all of this, then you’re in luck. The Oxford Internet Institute, encouraged by ORG Advisory Council member Dr Ian Brown, and in partnership with the London School of Economics, have just announced an afternoon of talks entitled “Musicians, fans and online copyright”. Here’s the blurb:

Is home downloading killing music? Should Internet Service Providers monitor customers to try and spot copyright infringement, and disconnect downloaders? Do musicians need new laws to benefit from the opportunities of the internet? Join us to debate these questions and more with leading copyright thinkers from the music world, government, consumer groups and universities.

It’s happening on Wednesday, 19 March, from 1400-1730 at LSE’s Old Theatre on Houghton Street. I’ll be speaking, along with confirmed speakers John Kennedy (IFPI), Paul Sanders (Playlouder), Lilian Edwards (Southampton University), Rufus Pollock (Cambridge University) and Michelle Childs (Knowledge Ecology International). Entry is free, but you’ll need to register here if you want to attend.

A year ago today, the Gowers Review was released to the public. The Government accepted all of the 54 recommendations it made, and experts welcomed the balanced approach it took to intellectual property law in the digital age, since it matched greater flexibility with tougher measures on enforcement (although at the time, we flagged its failure to distinguish between large-scale commercial counterfeiting, and small-scale non-commercial acts carried out by individuals, now a live issue with current IPRED 2 negotiations). But one year on, things don’t look quite so rosy.

I interviewed Andrew Gowers a few hours after the release of the Review. He said that enforcement and flexibility were “two sides of the same coin”. The Review states:

“Copyright in the UK presently suffers from a marked lack of public legitimacy. It is perceived to be overly restrictive, with little guilt or sanction associated with infringement.”

Gowers’s suite of recommendations attempted to redress this situation by re-instating the balance in copyright law. So how has Government performed in implementing Gowers’s recommendations?

In April this year, changes to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act came into force that allowed Trading Standards to enter premises and seize goods and documents they believe to be involved in copyright infringement. These changes were backed by £5m in new funding for Trading Standards. There is little question that this contributed to the arrests of webmasters at TV-links and Oink later in the year.

In May, the UK Intellectual Property Office (UK IPO) quietly delayed its consultations on changes to the law that would allow a private copying exception, an exception for researchers, for libraries and educators, and for those creating works of parody or pastiche out of copyrighted works.

In November, at an event hosted by the Social Market Foundation, the recording industry revealed plans to cooperate with ISPs and launch a “3 steps and you’re terminated” regime that would cut off the internet connections associated with people believed to be sharing copyrighted works unlawfully. This industry cooperation is recommendation 39 of the Gowers Review, and it looks to be on schedule.

A call to the UK IPO yesterday confirmed that consultations on the exceptions to copyright law have been further delayed, and will now not be seen until the New Year. These are consultations, the first baby step in implementation, and it’s unlikely that any actual legal amendments will be seen until 2009 at the earliest.

What’s more, when the Open Rights Group met with culture minister Margaret Hodge and senior officers from DCMS and the UK IPO in October, it was revealed that actions to implement recommendation 11, that copyright should be amended at the European level to create an exception for transformative works, had not even been timetabled.

If enforcement and flexibility are two sides of the same coin, then one year on it looks like the toss has definitely gone to enforcement. This means that Government is in effect making the situation worse: concentrating on strengthening enforcement measures while failing to address the inherent inflexibility of copyright law that Gowers identified as a key factor in the general public’s disrespect for the law.

It’s up to all of us who submitted evidence to Gowers in 2006 to keep the pressure up on Government to make good on their promise to reform copyright for the digital age.

Back in May, we reported on the House of Commons Culture Committee’s misguided decision to recommend that the term of copyright in sound recordings be extended. The recommendation come despite compelling evidence that as well as harming consumers and follow on innovators, such a move would bring no benefit to the majority of UK recording artists and would result in a net loss to the UK economy. It also came couched in language that betrayed a basic misunderstanding of copyright law on behalf of the Committee.

Today the Department of Culture, Media and Sport have responded to the Culture Committee, and the good news is they’ve rejected the recommendation to extend term. From the official response:

“The Government appreciates the work of the Committee and the deliberation it has given to thissubject. As the Committee noted, the independent Gowers Review also considered this issue in detail and recommended that the European Commission retain a term of protection for sound recordings and performers of 50 years. The Review undertook a detailed analysis of all the arguments put forward, including the moral arguments regarding the treatment of performers. It concluded that an extension would not benefit the majority of performers, most of whom have contractual relationships requiring their royalties be paid back to the record label. It also concluded that an extension would have a negative impact on the balance of trade and that it would not increase incentives to create new works. Furthermore, it considered not just the impact on the music industry but on the economy as a whole, and concluded that an extension would lead to increased costs to industry, such as those who use music – whether to provide ambience in a shop or restaurant or for TV or radio broadcasting – and to consumers who would have to pay royalties for longer. In reaching such conclusions, the Review took account of the question of parity with other countries such as the US, and concluded that, although royalties were payable for longer there, the total amount was likely to be similar – or possibly less – as there were fewer revenue streams available under the US system.

“An independent report, commissioned by the European Commission as part of its ongoing work in reviewing the copyright acquis, also considered the issue of term. It reached the same overall conclusion on this matter as the Gowers Review.

“Taking account of the findings of these reports, which carefully considered the impact on the economy as a whole, and without further substantive evidence to the contrary, it does not seem appropriate for the Government to press the Commission for action at this stage.”

You can download the full response here. It’s worth a read in full, as the Committee’s report, on the whole and apart from the recommendations regarding copyright term, made some good recommendations for New Media and DCMS’s responses are generally good too.

As the BPI point out in today’s press, this means that they will have to take their fight for copyright term extension to Europe without the support of the UK government. This is significant, since the UK government is likely to have a disproportionately loud voice on this issue both because it is home to the most lucrative recording industry in Europe and because it has taken the time to review this issue in detail.

The House of Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport has today released its Fifth Report - an investigation into New Media.

The report endorses performing artists’ call for an extension to the term of copyright in sound recordings (although, as Copyweb points out, this slightly confuses rights in performances with rights in sound recordings).

The Committee’s logic looks simple:

“Gowers’ analysis was thorough and in economic terms may be correct. It gives the impression, however, of having been conducted entirely on economic grounds. We strongly believe that copyright represents a moral right of a creator to choose to retain ownership and control of their own intellectual property. We have not heard a convincing reason why a composer and his or her heirs should benefit from a term of copyright which extends for lifetime and beyond, but a performer should not.”

Gowers did couch his report in economic terms. His idea of balance matched the needs of creators against those of consumers and innovators.

But he didn’t just do this because he was commissioned by the Treasury. He was reflecting the current position of UK law. Current UK law regards copyright as an economic incentive to create, or, as Gowers puts it “a purely statutory right created for the utilitarian purpose of encouraging literary efforts”.

It seems the House of Commons Select Committee is not arguing for an extension to term, it is arguing for a fundamental change to the law, a law for which there are plenty of “convincing reasons” which can all be couched in moral terms.

But it may just as likely be the case that the House of Commons Select Committee on Culture Media and Sport simply doesn’t know its law properly.

Update 2: Nick Pollard says Stephen Williams MP has responded to his letter by agreeing to take his name off the EDM. Well done, Nick (and Mr Williams MP). Anyone else had a response? Let us know so we can strike their names off the list below.

Update: 7 more MPs have signed the EDM this week. If you are a constituent of one of these members, please write to explain why we should all oppose this copyright extension.

• Alan Simpson - Nottingham South - Labour

• Janet Dean - Burton - Labour

• Jeffrey Donaldson - Lagan Valley - Democratic Unionist Party

• Frank Doran - Aberdeen North - Labour

• Pete Wishart - Perth and Perthshire - SNP

• Alasdair McDonnell - Belfast South - Social Democratic and Labour Party

• Colin Burgon - Elmet - Labour Party

Here we go again.

Top-level reviews of intellectual property regulation reject proposals to extend the length of copyright protection for producers and performers. An independent economic study grounds the Gowers Review’s recommendation that “The European Commission should retain the length of protection on sound recordings and performers’ rights at 50 years.” This recommendation, endorsed by the British government in December 2006, is affirmed by a report authored for the European Commission that rejects in even stronger terms proposals for extension.

Yet certain politicians appear to be neglecting their IP studies. Seventy MPs have now signed an Early Day Motion calling for extension: perhaps they’re simply studying from the same textbooks as Mick, Katie and Cliff? Please write to tell your MP that term extension will neither benefit starving musicians nor guarantee profits for the recording industry.

We must remind politicians to debate this issue on the basis of evidence – which points firmly against extension – rather than nostalgia. It is particularly important to write if you are a constituent of one of these 70 MPs:

If you need fuel for your letters, watch the videos (or listen to the audio) from our Release the Music debate (thanks, Tim!). The first part is a fantastic speech by Jonathan Zittrain, which explains this issue and other aspects of copyright reform in clear terms. The second is a panel debate, featuring representatives from the music industry as well as an academic and recording artist.

We’ll be updating our Release the Music briefing pack before taking the campaign to Europe later this year. If any readers are excited to get involved, please drop me a line so we can coordinate our efforts.

The Gowers Review, commissioned by the government to look at intellectual property law in the United Kingdom, published its final report today. It was commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown MP so it is expected that the report will hold a lot of weight and that its recommendations will be followed. We are delighted to see an evidence-based approach to reviewing Intellectual Property, and welcome many of the recommendations he makes, some of which we actively lobbied for. The report is 142 pages long so if you don’t have time to read it all, here are some points of interest. (This expands on our earlier press release).

• No extension of copyright term
• Exceptions to copyright
• A private copying exception
• Look into orphan works
• No expansion of software patents
• The possibility of a labelling convention for DRM
• Easier methods for complaints relating to DRM
• Stronger enforcement of IP law
• Fast track registration for trade marks, and Community Patent Review

No extension of copyright term

The music industry lobbied hard to extend the term of copyright for audio recordings. As regular readers will know, we lobbied hard against this happening, and we would like to thank every one who helped us on this as the report recommends that the term of copyright protection for sound recordings remain at 50 years. There is no doubt that this is the right decision - it is supported by all the evidence. But the Government must stand firm in the face of renewed industry attempts to marginalise the Gowers Review.

Matt Black, DJ and one half of Coldcut, said:

“The only people to benefit from term extension would be the giant traditional media groups - artists would actually benefit more from letting music enter the public domain. Extending copyright term for past works amounts to revising the deals made with artists without their consent. Who would sign a deal for a term of ‘50 years or however long we want to make it by lobbying to get the law changed’?

“The conclusion of the Gowers review that copyright term should not be extended is the correct one; we should not follow the lead of the US who have submitted to corporate demands by Big Media. Here we can recognise that music is a key part of our culture, (and, indeed, a key export), that recycling is a natural part of musical creativity and that not extending the existing copyright term will promote the creation of UK music.”

Exceptions to copyright

Calls for additional exemptions to copyright law for “creative, transformative* or derivative works” and for “caricature, parody or pastiche” will be important to both artists and the public alike. We are pleased to hear that libraries will be supported in their preservation work and will be allowed to copy and reformat copyrighted material, including film and sound recordings. This is essential to the health of our cultural heritage and we are delighted that the Chancellor has recognised its importance.

A private copying exception

A recommendation that private users be allowed to copy music from a CD to their MP3 player. When ever I mention this is a conversation I normally get a wonderfully confused look followed by the comment “What, I thought that was legal.” It still currently not legal in the UK, that is until this recommendation if followed and the law is amended.

Back in February when the Open Rights Group was presenting evidence to the All Party Internet Group, Ian Brown said

I am always astonished when I speak at events like this that it is only a small number of lawyers who know copyright law who even realise there is not a private copy exemption in British law. I am sure if you went home and talked to friends and family very few would realise they were breaking copyright law by making copies of their own CDs, for example.

Look into orphan works

The term ‘orphan work’ is used to describe a situation where the owner of a copyright work cannot be identified by someone else who wishes to use the work. Estimates suggest that only 2 per cent of all works that are protected by copyright are commercially available. In 1930, 10,027 books were published in the USA, but by 2001 all but 174 were out of print.77 The British Library estimates 40 per cent of all print works are orphan works.

Recommendation 13: Propose a provision for orphan works to the European Commission, amending Directive 2001/29/EC.

Gowers Report

No expansion of software patents

The Review supports the current position on pure software patents, business method patents and gene patents, highlighting the considerable costs and the negative effects that the USA has experienced where multiple owners each have a right to exclude others, and no-one in effect has the right to develop anything.

Recommendation 17: Maintain policy of not extending patent rights beyond their present limits within the areas of software, business methods and genes.

Gowers Report

The possibility of a labelling convention for DRM

This follows on from the All Party Internet Groups recommendations. The logic behind it is simple, let the market decide if it wants DRM or not, the market only works when the customers know what they are buying, so if there was a simple labelling system for DRM that informed the users that a product has DRM and what restrictions that DRM will enforce, customers can make informed decisions. This will be a very effective way of discouraging DRM. In the event that companies use DRM to create market power, damage users’ software or invade their privacy, the Review recommends that the Office of Fair Trading undertakes investigations.

Recommendation 16: DTI should investigate the possibility of providing consumer guidance on DRM systems through a labelling convention without imposing unnecessary regulatory burdens.

Gowers Report

Easier methods for complaints relating to DRM

DRM often prevents legitimate uses users from doing perfectly legal things. This often means that DRM breaks UK law. For example, the Royal National Institute for the Blind note that Adobe eBooks usually have ‘accessibility’ settings disabled. This prevents the visually impaired exercising their rights to make copies in accordance with the exceptions introduced by the Copyright (Visually Impaired Persons) Act 2002.85 Such exceptions ought to be respected by technology.

In theory any user could make a complaint but as there is no easy way to do so. The Review recommends that the procedures in place for circumventing DRM to allow copying for uses deemed legitimate under copyright exceptions ought to be made easier.

Recommendation 15: Make it easier for users to file notice of complaints procedures relating to Digital Rights Management tools by providing an accessible web interface on the Patent Office website by 2008.

Gowers Report

Stronger enforcement of IP law

This review is the most important critique of intellectual property in the UK of recent years, and we are delighted to see that the majority of its recommendations are sensible and constructive. We welcome the Chancellor’s commitment to tackling counterfeiting and piracy. However, we are concerned that the report seems to make no distinction between large-scale commercial counterfeiting, and small-scale non-commercial acts carried out by individuals. Too often these vastly different acts are conflated by the music industry, and the drafters of any new intellectual property law must make the difference clear to both the courts and the rights holders.

We are concerned that without this clarification, this report will give a green light to the record industry to continue to pursue frivolous court cases. If the police become involved in infringement investigations, as recommended by the Gowers Review, there is a risk that their resources would be diverted from tackling serious crime by an over-enthusiastic music industry keen to prosecute grannies and children for file sharing.

We would urge the Chancellor and to commission an independent study into file sharing, as it is clear that much more research is needed in order to determine how file sharing should be treated legally. Impartial evidence must form the foundation for policy in this area, rather than biased and unreliable information provided by interested parties.

Fast track registration for trade marks

By allowing trademarks to be fast-tracked, Gowers is adopting a more web-like process of comment and review to take place. Taking this together with the recommendation for a Community Patent Review pilot, Gowers is moving some way towards a web-like model of knowledge creation.

Recommendation 25b: The Patent Office should conduct a pilot of Beth Noveck’s Community Patent Review in 2007 in the UK to determine whether this would have a positive impact on the quality of the patent stock.

Recommendation 25b: Introduce fast track registration for trade marks.

The Review proposes that a fast track system (in addition to the normal system) should be available to allow for trade marks to be examined and accepted within 10 days of the application being filed. Once the application is accepted it can be published and thereafter the 3-month opposition period would begin. This fast track system should be accompanied by a higher fee.

Gowers Report

Thanks to everyone who made it along on Monday night. For those who could not attend, and also for reference purposes, you can now download the audio recording - in either MP3 or Ogg Vorbis format - from the link below. Its split into 2 sections, 1 covers the lecture from Jonathan Zittrain, and the other covers the panel discussion.

http://media.ito.com/suw/rtm/

We hope to make an audio-visual record available within a week or so.