17/12/2006 AIM Welcomes Gowers Intellectual Property Review, But Rejects Two Key Recommendations

Expressing the disappointment of AIM and its members at the Gowers Review’s early December recommendations on two issues vital to the UK music industry - private copying and the term of copyright protection for recorded music – Alison Wenham stated: “We note this report, but we can only see it as a noteworthy contribution to the continuing debate about the role and future of the creative industries in Great Britain. Copyright is, and will remain, vitally important to those who rely on it for their living. It is equally important to the Government. We did not expect Gowers to have found a complete solution within nine months. The debate will most definitely continue: AIM and its fellow UK music business organisations will ensure that it does.”

The Review recommends that an exception should be created in UK copyright Law to allow private copying- aimed specifically at transferring music from one recorded format to another for private use. AIM comments –

• this recognises the realities of private copying - a universally assumed right, despite the industry’s stance against serious uploaders of copyright music. AIM wanted a pragmatic approach, but such an exception applied without any reciprocal benefit to the creator and copyright owner is taking pragmatism to the point of capitulation. It falls drastically short of creating the progressive copyright framework needed in the digital age, and could open the floodgates to uncontrolled and unstoppable private copying and P2P sharing once owned, however acquired, music will be passed on freely.

• it ignores the right owners’ reasonable right to remuneration for use of intellectual property - a principle long served in much of Europe by levies on blank recording hardware and software.

• this private copying exception will exacerbate the problems facing the creative industries in the digital age. It ducks the real issue of how to remunerate creators for mass digital private copying of their work, and will bolster the widespread public perception that all music should be free - frustrating industry attempts to establish a legitimate market structure for online distribution and paid-for downloads.

On the Gowers recommendation that owners of copyright in recorded music should be denied an extension of term of protection, AIM responded -

• there are pros and cons to extension, we believe that parity between the USA and writers and composers (95 years protection) is only just, fair and reasonable, and any other arrangement represents discrimination against the performers who bring the music to life.

• any copyright extension should be married to the creation of a public fund for creativity. This fund could be used, for example, to support the digitisation, restoration and preservation of the nation’s National Sound Archive.




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