This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Business News Legal Top Stories
People comment on the Hargreaves Review
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 19 May 2011
BPI boss Geoff Taylor: “Professor Hargreaves has sensibly rejected Google’s flawed case for a significant weakening of UK copyright. He has recognised that innovation and economic growth are best stimulated by licensing the IP we create in the UK, and that strong creative industries that succeed on a global stage are fundamental to recovery from recession. We support the objective of making it legal for consumers to transfer the music they have purchased onto their own devices and will work with government to ensure this is implemented in a way that respects the rights of music creators. The practicalities, scope and costs of the proposed digital copyright exchange, the various exceptions proposed and the expanded role for the Intellectual Property Office, will require careful scrutiny”.
UK Music dude Feargal Sharkey: “The members of UK Music took this review at face value, and we are pleased it recognises the vital role of intellectual property to this country’s future economic growth. Recent years have seen significant progress in terms of digital innovation and infrastructural change, such as the development of industry-led global repertoire databases, as suggested by Professor Hargreaves. Clearly, copyright law is not confined by national boundaries, and many of today’s recommendations are also the focus of European policy-makers. One of these is format shifting, an area where the UK music industry has willingly proposed solutions that would legitimise consumer behaviour and benefit UK creators. We now look forward to engaging closely with government and trust they will support our musical talent at home, in Brussels and everywhere else in the world”.
7Digital groove-meister Ben Drury: “7Digital welcomes the conclusions of the Hargreaves report and the liberalising of UK copyright law. In particular, we welcome the recognition that ‘format shifting’ should be legal and bringing UK copyright law in line with the rest of Europe will open up the market and promote innovation. Having outdated laws is a hindrance to companies that aim to develop new products and services for consumers of digital music and content, which in turn slows the adoption of digital and damages the music and content industries as a whole. The creation of the digital copyright exchange and the requirement on collecting societies to legally adopt codes of practice are also welcome. 7Digital believes that in the digital age removing barriers to licensing and increased transparency is critical to ensuring the UK can remain at the forefront of digital content creation”.
We7 quote-machine Steve Purdham: “Anything that simplifies the licensing of copyright material will benefit the digital industries, especially in terms of innovation and growth, but it must equally protect the value of that copyright. Modifying copyright laws so that it reflects the real world again should be embraced. I like the common sense approach that Hargreaves has suggested, especially realising that a combination of education, markets and enforcement need to work together. I believe that as long as we can protect IP, the focus and delivery of simpler licensing can be the catalyst for significant innovation and growth and in turn create more value for copyright”.
The Pirate Party’s unnamed words-king: “The Pirate Party UK welcomes the conclusion that copyright and patent law must adapt to the changing world in which we live. As we made clear in our submission to the review, the Pirate Party agrees that copyright and patents should ‘make not break markets’ and that the rights of innovators and artists should be balanced with those of the public to enjoy such work. Like Professor Hargreaves, we ‘urge Government to ensure that in future, policy on intellectual property issues is constructed on the basis of evidence, rather than weight of lobbying’. The Party is disappointed, however, that the review has been held back from proposing any real reform to deal with the extensive problems that current copyright and patent frameworks pose, nor sought to redress the imbalance between the rights of creator and the needs of society”.
