So, extended copyright coverage for you this morning, which is slightly ironic. As expected, former Financial Times editor Andrew Gowers yesterday formally recommended to the government that the recording copyright here in our United Kingdom (and, by association, across Europe, this is all tied to our intellectual property commitments to the European Union) should remain at 50 years, and should not be extended to 95 years to bring it in line with the US, as the record companies had been campaigning for. Gower recommends that "the European Commission does not change the status quo and retains the 50 year term of copyright protection for sound recordings and related performers' rights".
Gowers reached the conclusion in his much previously reported government commissioned review of the UK's intellectual property laws. Of course government ministers are not obligated to follow all (or any) of Gowers' recommendations, so a proactive and public lobbying campaign by the music industry, already launched last week when rumours of Gowers' conclusions first circulated, continued yesterday with key industry organisations calling on politicians to extend the recorded copyright anyway. Of course, even if they do go with Gowers' recommendations (which early indications suggest they will), the industry will continue to lobby for the extension at both a UK and European level, but record companies had hoped to secure the extension in the latest IP law review because the fifty year copyright is about to expire on a raft of lucrative UK rock n roll recordings.
Elsewhere in his report, Gower also recommended that new copyright laws should allow consumers the 'private copying rights' enjoyed by consumers in many other countries, which allow people to legally make copies of music they have bought for personal use (eg transferring music from CD to MP3 player, or making a second CD copy for use in the car). Such rights would be "strictly limited", but would remove a copyright restriction which has been criticised by many as a foolish law given that nearly every consumer disobeys it and no copyright owners would ever try to enforce it. The BPI itself has admitted that record labels would never try to protect their right to stop consumers making limited private copies, though some in the industry advocate a system whereby labels licence purchasers of music the right to make private copies, rather than the actual change in the law that Gowers is proposing. Others in the industry will also be disappointed that Gowers does not suggest a private copying levy system like that which operates in some other countries where private copying rights exist, a levy that is charged on devices used for making private copies - tapes, CDRs and, sometimes, MP3 players - which is then passed back to the music community.
Where the record labels will agree with Gowers, however, is in his tough talking regarding piracy, and especially online piracy. The report says that piracy and counterfeiting are probably the biggest challenge facing the "intellectual property system", estimating that 20% of the entertainments industry's potential turnover was lost to illegal copying. It also suggests that online piracy should be taken as seriously as that involving physical product and therefore piracy penalities for people who sell pirated versions of music and film over the net should be on par with those for people who sell bootleg CDs and DVDs. Currently the maximum sentence in the UK for the former is two years, while for the latter it is ten. Gowers also suggests that Trading Standards Officers who currently only deal with physical piracy should also have a remit to investigate online pirates.
While it will take some time for the government to now assess Gowers' recommendations and to translate them into legislation proposals for parliament, that Gordon Brown chap, who commissioned the report, said in his budget statement yesterday that he would immediately back a greater role for Trading Standards Officers in the fight against content piracy, pledging an extra £5 million in government money to fund extra work in the area.