UK Gov't Now Supporting 3 Strikes: Lobbyists Win Again

from the the-will-of-the-people? dept

Ah, those pesky lobbyists. It seems that the UK gov't really has a way with doing a detailed report on what should be done on the music industry, which gets some of the important points right... and then it all gets tossed out the window once the recording industry lobbyists jump into things. Remember a few years back when the gov't commissioned the Gowers Report, which said copyright terms should not be extended (and Gowers himself later admitted that all of the evidence actually suggests it should be shortened)? Yup, well, then the lobbyists took over, and suddenly the government's Cultural Secretary Andy Burnham is singing the praises of copyright extension. These days, it looks like extension is almost certainly going to happen in the UK despite all the evidence as to why it shouldn't.

Looks like the same thing is happening again. Earlier this year, the UK gov't "Digital Britain" report clearly said that a three strikes regime, whereby ISPs would be responsible for kicking file sharers offline, didn't make sense. While there were other problems with the report, at least it knew better than to drag ISPs into things as copyright cops.

But... then the lobbyists took over. Entertainment industry lobbyists have been working overtime in the UK (the stories we've been hearing are pretty nuts...), and a few weeks ago the British press was noting that UK Business Secretary Peter Mandelson had vacationed with David Geffen (who has ties to both the recording and the movie industries) and suddenly showed an immense interest that hadn't been there before, on changing Digital Britain to make the rules tougher.

So, surprise, surprise... suddenly ISPs are finding out that three strikes is back on the table even after being promised it wouldn't be. The original report had given regulators until 2012 to consider what technical measures ISPs should take -- if any. But Mandelson's department has suddenly declared that timeframe is "too long." The minister for Digital Britain, Stephen Timms, practically comes out and admits that they were lobbied hard:

"We've been listening carefully to responses to the consultation this far, and it's become clear there are widespread concerns that the plans as they stand could delay action, impacting unfairly upon rights holders."

So, expect three strikes to show up in the UK. Of course, it will be a dreadful mistake. I still can't understand why the recording industry thinks this is a good idea. You may kick people off the internet, but does anyone honestly think that will actually get people to buy again? It seems like a strategy designed to piss more people off. And when has that ever been good for business?

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Breast-Feeding Photo Brouhaha Shows How Impossible It Is To Rate Websites

from the mission-impossible dept

Just after the UK's culture minister, Andy Burnham, announced that he thinks all websites can and should be rated, comes a story that highlights what a ridiculous suggestion it is to say that you can simply classify all websites. Facebook is facing a bit of a backlash after the company started banning some photos of women breast-feeding as being inappropriate. Basically, Facebook has been making its own judgment on which of those photos are "obscene" and which are fine -- and it's pissing off a bunch of moms whose photos have been deleted. And, of course, this is just one simple example. Thinking that there's some sort of single objective measure by which all sites (or content) can be rated is so wrong it's hard to believe that someone thinking such a thing was possible could hold down a serious job, let alone elected office.

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UK Culture Secretary Andy Burnham Wants Websites To Be Rated... To Protect The Children

from the can-we-rate-Andy-Burnham-instead? dept

The UK sure does have one impressively clueless culture secretary in Andy Burnham. We first came across him nearly a year ago, when he was suggesting that it should be ISPs' responsibility to deal with file sharing by monitoring usage and cutting off users who file share. Then, just a few weeks ago, he made an incredibly poorly thought out speech, where he pushed for copyright extension on performance rights, not for any good reason -- but because of some odd "moral" compunction to take content away from the public and give it to the record labels. For this he was roundly criticized by those who actually understand the topic.

But, of course, it appears he can't stop there. His latest move is to suggest that all websites should be rated and ISPs should be responsible for blocking access to inappropriate content, "for the children" of course. Burnham seems to think that the proliferation of information online is a bad thing:

"If you look back at the people who created the internet, they talked very deliberately about creating a space that governments couldn't reach. I think we are having to revisit that stuff seriously now.... There is content that should just not be available to be viewed. That is my view. Absolutely categorical. This is not a campaign against free speech, far from it; it is simply there is a wider public interest at stake when it involves harm to other people. We have got to get better at defining where the public interest lies and being clear about it."

Because, that's just what the world needs: more government censorship determining what is and what is not "appropriate" online. This is the typical mistake made by politicians who think the internet is a content platform, and not a communications platform. If he's going to censor the internet for such content, will he also make it illegal to say bad things over the phone?

To make it even more ridiculous, he wants to take the UK's libel laws -- already some of the most draconian around -- and make them even worse. He wants it to be easier than ever to sue for defamatory speech, apparently not noticing how many bogus defamation lawsuits are brought by those who are merely upset at being criticized, rather than defamed. Making it easier only encourages more bogus lawsuits.

Would it really be that out of line to suggest that a culture secretary actually understand the internet before trying to regulate it?

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Gowers Slams Out Of Touch UK Cultural Secretary Over Copyright Extension Plan

from the learn-some-economics dept

Last week, UK Cultural Secretary Andy Burnham laid out a highly questionable argument in favor of copyright extension on performance rights in the UK. The logic he used made little sense, and seemed to be based on a odd belief that musicians had some sort of moral claim on money more than 50 years after they recorded songs -- ignoring plenty of evidence that any extension wouldn't actually benefit most musicians, but would enrich the major record labels.

Now, SteveD points out that Andrew Gowers has responded to Burnham's suggestion and trashed the idea impressively. Gowers, you may recall, is the former Financial Times editor who was asked to explore issues having to do with copyright by the UK government. After spending quite some time researching the issue, he produced the so-called Gowers Report, that explained why copyright extension was a bad idea. Later, Gowers admitted that all of the evidence suggests copyright should actually be much shorter, not longer.

Gowers response to Burnham is worth reading in its entirety, as it skewers pretty much every point that Burnham put forth. Here are just a few tidbits:

As political speeches go, this is pretty silly. A moral case? You might just as well say sportspeople have a moral case to a pension at 30.

Copyright is an economic instrument, not a moral one, and if you consider the economic arguments -- as I did two years ago at the request of Gordon Brown -- you will find that they do not stack up. All the respectable research shows that copyright extension has high costs to the public and negligible benefits for the creative community.

Consumers find themselves paying more for old works or unable to access "orphan works" where copyright ownership is unclear. Small businesses that play recorded music such as hairdressing salons and local radio stations face a hidden extra "tax" in the form of higher music-licence fees. Do they really need this at this time?

Mr Burnham will no doubt find such arguments uncool. But even on his terms, the case for extension does not work. Twenty years' extra earning power in 50 years' time does nothing to put more money in the pockets of struggling performers now: two thirds of lifetime income from an average compact disc comes in the first six years after release.

And it will not alter the incentives for creation one jot. As Dave Rowntree, Blur's drummer, told my review: "I have never heard of a single band deciding not to record a song because it will fall out of copyright in only 50 years. The idea is laughable."

The rest of it is worth reading as well, and near the end he puts in a key point, addressed to the music labels: "Please focus on innovation, not on trying to eke more rent from the successes of yesteryear." Indeed.

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UK Culture Secretary Pushes Copyright Extension With Questionable Logic

from the can-I-get-paid-the-rest-of-my-life-please? dept

SteveD points us to the full text of a speech given by UK Cultural Secretary Andy Burnham, pushing for copyright extension on performance rights. The speech itself is interesting, in that Burnham at least pays some tribute to other ideas, even quoting John Perry Barlow on the nature of information. However, there are still plenty of troublesome (or downright incorrect) statements in the speech. Even though he kicks it off by saying that the government generally should stay out of the music business, he then goes on to mostly ignore that:

But, the truth is, government intervention in the music business does not have a glorious history. To paraphrase one of our greats, mixing pop and politics is not a straightforward business and, indeed, can be a bit embarrassing for all concerned.

The British music business has been a major success story with government at arm's length, or further - in something of a state of mutual distrust.

Over the second half of the last century the industry grew into one of real economic and cultural significance -- and its output for many defined us internationally -- yet without significant government intervention or political help.

But I'm going to make the case this morning that necessity means that the old order of things needs to change.

You would think, having admitted that when the industry has been successful without intervention and admitting that when the gov't does get involved, things tend to get messed up, he'd have a pretty rock solid reason for saying it's time to change. But he doesn't. His focus seems to be on the fact that musicians need to get paid for every song listened to -- which is simply not true. That may be the way things worked in the past (actually, that's not true -- because most record labels never handed that money over to musicians, but...), but plenty of musicians have figured out other ways of getting paid. Burnham seems to ignore all that, and posits the fallacy that if musicians don't get paid from each use of a recorded song, they don't get paid at all.

While he talks about new and innovative business models that can come about due to the internet, he then makes the mistake that all music industry business models must be based on copyright:

Copyright underpins the music business -- and all our creative industries -- and the right response when it's put under pressure is not to abandon a system as outdated, but to make it work better.

And then he goes for the "moral" angle, which makes very little sense:

There is a moral case for performers benefiting from their work throughout their entire lifetime.

There are numerous problems with this sentence. First of all, no one has ever said that performers don't benefit from their work throughout their lifetimes, even if they're not paid for every single use. But they should be the ones who set up how they benefit -- not the government. If I performed on a hit song in the 60s, there are plenty of ways to benefit: such as by convincing others to hire me by noting "Hey, look, I played the guitar on this number one hit from 1968..." or whatever.

But, Burnham is making a totally fallacious argument: that if you're not getting paid directly and repeatedly for the work, then there's some sort of moral code broken. On that, I think many people would disagree. Most folks get paid for their work once. They don't continue to get paid directly for it throughout their lifetimes. They're expected to keep working, and to save money so that eventually they can retire. Why should things be any different for performers?

And, the worst part is that Burnham leaves out the truly "moral" question of copyright extension: that it's taking content away from the public domain. The musicians who recorded performances fifty years ago entered into a deal with the public -- the public that Burnham is supposed to be representing, though he seems to think he represents the artists. They would perform the music and retain exclusive rights over it for 50 years. Then it goes into the public domain. To retroactively and unilaterally change that deal is completely unfair to everyone. It's saying that a deal that was entered into fifty years ago can be ignored and changed to benefit a single party against every other person. How is that possibly moral?

There's a lot more in the speech that is equally troubling, but it's just repeating the same old talking points. The speech also ignores the research that has shown that copyright extension won't actually give very much to the musicians, but will dump millions into the coffers of the big record labels. It's not surprising, because we've heard this before, but it's a speech that ignores reality and paints a fantasy picture of both what's happening in the industry and the entire purpose of copyright law.

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