Already, one UK minister said that a so-called “three strikes” law is too draconian back in June, but more recently, a UK ISP tried to institute their own three strikes law. That case caused the Open Rights Group to describe the three strikes regime as ““Guilt by accusation, punishment without trial“.

This may really ultimately be the core problem of a so-called three strikes regime – how many civil or criminal cases can see someone punished based on an accusation and without the option of going to court? What a three strikes regime has had a history of is trying to dodge the whole court system and skip right to punishing people based on an accusation essentially.

That’s what makes the latest blog posting on the UK Pirate Party’s website all the more interesting. In it, Andy R. discusses legal aspects of file sharing.

Back in June of 2008, a leaked letter said that the government was setting a goal of reducing file-sharing by 80%. When the Digital Britain report was issued later that month, that target ended up being 70%. By then, many in the file-sharing community were up in arms over the governments plans. Fast forward a year later, the British government wanted more time to reach that goal.

This was brought up as a key point in the UK Pirate Party’s posting. Under the presumption that a fair trial were to be brought up to the accused for each case, Andy R. had this to say:

Justice for those accused of file sharing will naturally require the opportunity for those accused to have an opportunity to see the evidence against them and challenge it in a court of law. To reduce file sharing by 70%, assuming 7 million people sharing 100 files each means dealing with 70% of 700,000,000 files. That’s 490,000,000 fair trials, or if, as has been rumoured there are to be two different offences, one for uploading, another for downloading, nearly 1 billion fair trials.

Her Majesty’s Courts Service say in their annual report that they dealt with 150,000 criminal cases and 2 million civil claims last year. Can they realistically be expected to cope with an additional 1 billion next year, and has their budget of £1,766,222,000 been expanded 500-fold to do so? The answer, quite simply is no.

The inescapable conclusion is that the government are not intending to fund the expensive luxury of justice for those accused of file sharing. We can only afford to have a system without justice, where simply being denounced by a copyright-holder is sufficient for summary punishment to be dealt out, and that summary punishment will be dealt out to 70% of 7 million people.

This is an extremely strong argument using basic math. After all, in the US, ever since Napster was shut down, there has been a rigorous lawsuit campaign against file-sharers by rights holders with, unsurprisingly, an emphasis on deterrent punishments. Andy’s argument is a very good highlight on why the copyright industry simply cannot go after every file-sharer and why there was a strong hope that deterrents would work – which they didn’t. It’s the simple principle many file-sharers have been aware of for years – safety in numbers.

Since the industry cannot scare people back into the music stores, it’s not a surprise that there is the strong push for a three strikes regime these days – to skip the expensive justice system altogether so they don’t litigate themselves into bankruptcy.

The problem of enforcing a three strikes law is that it doesn’t jive with the whole concept of justice in the first place – guilt upon accusation, punishment without trial. In order to enforce such a regime, the industry has the next to impossible task of trying to convince the public that the court system is no longer needed in cases of copyright infringement to justify a three strikes law.

Suddenly, those court rooms with those evil lawyers, corrupt judges and a disgrace of a legal system now becomes the file-sharers safety net. Quite the reversal of thinking in light of the US government siding with the RIAA and urging the judge to ignore arguments that the Jammie Thomas damages of $1.92 million in fines for many file-sharers aware of the political wrangling’s of copyright.

Given that the copyright industry in the UK is pushing – and pushing hard – for a three strikes regime in the UK and that many are realizing that the sought after three strikes regime involves the accused not being able to dispute the accusations in court, it’s not hard to figure out why there is a rise in the Pirate Party’s popularity these days. A political party that many see as impervious to the back room lobbying of the copyright industry to push through draconian copyright laws. As the threats grow for many who might – whether warranted or not – have their culture of the internet cut off, those people discover the real threat of human progress being pulled back by close to 25 years and all the benefits that came with the internet revolution.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Geoff Taylor, the head of the BPI recently suggested that he also regrets the industry not moving faster to sell music albums on the internet.

Still, he maintains that the websites since then still damaging the industry. There’s also the comment that suggests that he still believes that one download means one lost sale; though he didn’t say that specifically, only to say that there’s less money for music because of unauthorized downloading. Of course, he makes no mention of an earlier finding that points out how games and movies are more likely to be blamed for less money if there is a monetary loss in the market. Naturally, there isn’t a mention of how the industry plans on competing against such competing markets as a consequence.

Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group praised the fact that Taylor has realized this, but points out that there’s still a heavy push to get users disconnected in Britain as well. So really, this copyright war between the industry and it’s consumers is far from over. Back in April, one British minister shot down the three-strikes proposals calling them too draconian.

Who knows though? Maybe eventually the top music industry labels will eventually figure out how to tackle the internet and how it’s had such an effect on music. It just might take a while at this rate though.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

One may call it a new weapon against file-sharers who are savvy enough to use a file-sharing website, but not savvy enough to install a pop-up killer (now pre-bundled in many web browsers) or anti-adware software to stop the ads – whoever they are. A report from The Guardian talks about this more recent push by the copyright industry that resides in the UK to toughen up copyright laws. From the report:

The UK film and television industry is calling on the government to introduce online “speed humps” that would slow down or restrict the broadband access of people who illegally share copyrighted material, and slap pop-up warnings on websites to stem the rising tide of internet piracy.

Rising tide indeed if the copyright industry statistics are to be believable (Canadians are probably even less likely now). The report now suggests that there are 6 million file-sharers in the UK engaged in file-sharing – a completely different number to that of the last guess of 1.3 Million on one network.

Additionally, this is suppose to be one of the tools the copyright industry would have – effectively getting ISPs to do their dirty work in the process – to supposedly eliminate piracy by 70% – 80%. That 70% – 80% targeted reduction is certainly in-line with last years leaked letter where the British government vowed to reduce file-sharing by 80%.

The idea behind getting ISPs to bring pop-ups to users who access file-sharing sites? From the Guardian:

“Making life difficult for people who persist in accessing and copying protected material, while not preventing them from shopping online, browsing, banking online or using the internet for other legitimate purposes, is surely preferable to court actions, except in the most flagrant cases of abuse,” said Lavinia Carey, chair of Respect For Film, a lobby group backed by the British Video Association, the Federation Against Copyright Theft, and studios including NBC Universal and Warner Bros.

“We see the use of technological measures as similar to creating road humps – they will make potential copyright infringers pause and think twice.”

Last year, British ISPs signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that said that ISPs agree that they need to take measures to fight online piracy. While UK ISPs did sign the MoU, they still expressed reluctance to disconnecting alleged copyright infringers.

Still, this latest demand seems to follow along a theme that was seen last year when Virgin Media sent out 800 warning letter to its customers – some of which have never used file-sharing clients before – in an effort to scare people away from file-sharing. These so-called “speed bumps” for file-sharing that is currently being pushed for by the UK copyright industry very likely won’t do a thing other than install nuisance-ware on the ISP level. After all, how hard could it be to block pop-up ads from ISPs anyway?

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

A report from Out-Law says that there might be a change of heart from the government on the possible law that occurred with the change in IP ministers. More from the report:

“However clear the Government’s commitment to tackling piracy we cannot, through legislation, provide anything like the whole answer to this complex area and the answer that we do find might prove to be short lived, even counter-productive if we are forced to be prescriptive, and that pushes infringement towards more difficult to detect methods,” said the Government’s consultation.

Lammy told The Observer that there will be anti-piracy legislation to back up the work of the rights agency, but that the laws must not be too specific or exhaustive.

“In the end, the solutions are going to be commercial solutions. They are going to be solutions that are about ensuring people pay for content, but the ease of paying is there,” he said.

Lammy said that solutions to the problem will also have to rely on individuals knowing more about copyright and the world of intellectual property becoming more accessible to people.

Earlier this month, the French government’s “three strikes” proposal was defeated only to, very recently, return to the French parliament. Still, the Europe-wide three strike proposal was effectively neutered through an amendment that would prevent people from getting disconnected from the internet in the telecoms package.

While the war is far from over, it seems as though supporters for the three strikes law are now, on the whole, on the losing side of the debate for now politically speaking.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

The report comes from the Independent where politicians are saying that the overall mood suggests that the ID card proposals might not go through. National ID could cost British taxpayers £9 billion, but with the economic crises forcing some governments to tighten their belts, that’s a price tag that is now causing parliamentarians to go into sticker shock.

More from the report:

A ComRes poll for The Independent today finds 55 per cent of voters favour public spending cuts to reduce Britain’s debts, against 38 per cent who want taxes to be increased. It also finds that the Tory lead over Labour has widened from 12 to 19 points since the Budget.

Issuing ID cards will cost more than £5bn over the next decade while scrapping the scheme now would leave the taxpayer with a relatively small compensation bill to pay.

Cabinet sceptics are preparing to use the public spending crunch to push for the scheme to be abandoned before the first cards are issued to British nationals this winter.

However, there is a growing recognition among ministers that after Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, signalled severe spending cuts in the Budget, some “big ticket” projects will have to be scrapped to help reduce the national deficit. The Home Office is widely considered to be particularly vulnerable to cuts.

No doubt this is welcome news to privacy rights advocates including an organization called No2ID which is an organization devoted to, among other things, killing the National ID cards in an effort to preserve privacy amongst British civilians. The organization has had a long and hard fought battle against the proposals by the government to mandate National ID cards.

From their website:

Let’s get this straight — it isn’t just about identity cards. The government’s identity scheme includes a huge database to keep tabs on everyone, a massive infrastructure to collect peoples’ details, and a giant network of technology required to verify people against their cards and both of these against the database.

The card is just the tip of the iceberg.

The proposed National Identity Management System has multiple layers: The National Identity Register (NIR); individual checking and numbering of the population; making personal details into “registrable facts” to be disclosed and constantly updated; collection and checking of biometrics (e.g. fingerprints); the card itself (and other documents made equivalent to an ID card); a widespread scanner and computer terminal network connected to the central database; widespread use of compulsory identity “verification”; and data-sharing between organisations on an unprecedented scale.

Clearly, the tide is shifting. While not for reasons groups like No2ID would like, it still seems like a victory nevertheless.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

There’s been a long hard fought battle between civil rights activists and supporters of increased surveillance on the internet. At issue is the gathering of all information of internet users in Britain, which includes everything about phone conversations, e-mail, social network communications, and other online activities, and putting them into a centralized database for British police to browse through without a court order or warrant. British civil rights and digital rights activists warned that, among other things, this could be an unprecedented move toward total surveillance of British citizens at the expense of basic fundamental rights. Supporters claim that this would create a valuable new tool to stem the flow of terrorism, help find missing persons, reduce crime and stop paedophiles.

Today, there was a concession. According to British news site, The Guardian, the Home Office has, for now, backed off of plans to centralize all of the data flowing through ISPs and instead require ISPs to hold all this information for a period of 12 months. That is a plan that would cost British tax payers £2 Billion.

The move was greeted with applause by civil rights advocates. Liberty, a British civil rights group, posted a press release on the recent move.

“We applaud the Home Office climb-down on the super Big Brother database and thank the broad coalition of sensible voices who brought it about. It is a clear signal that the public interest in personal privacy can no longer be ignored. However, if companies are to be required to hold even more information than they do at present, concerns about access and use become even more important.” Said Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty.

Chakrabarti added, “Let us look forward to this U-turn on communications data being followed by limiting DNA retention, dumping ID cards and a less callous approach to privacy protection more generally.”

In the midst of all this is the Home Office consultation. The online consultation says, “We want your opinion on how communications information should be collected and stored in order to prevent crime, and catch and prosecute criminals.”

“Communications data is the ‘who’, ‘where’, and ‘when’ information from mobile phone calls, texts, emails and instant messages. It can tell you who sent an email to whom but not what the content of that email was.”

According to a supplementary page, the consultation runs all the way up to July 20th. Information on sending your opinions in can be found there as well.

Late last year, Wikileaks obtained a copy of one of the extortion letters sent by the infamous law firm Davenport Lyons. The law firm, at the time, had been sending tens of thousands of these letters which threatened to take the recipients to court if they don’t pay just over 500 pounds. The original goal was to deter alleged copyright infringers, but in a strange twist of fate, the law firm is now actively trying to censor the letter itself claiming that the letter is protected under British copyright law.

The legal threat letters themselves contain a hash value, and IP address and a time stamp that is being used as evidence – flimsy evidence according to many people who have observed the legal side of file-sharing. The reason it is seen as flimsy is that a filename can be called anything and still have the same hash value. Second of all, there is no evidence provided that verified that the file name matched what the actual work was. For all we know, it could have been a 5 minute porn clip rather than a music video. Thirdly, there’s no evidence to suggest that an IP address is linked to an individual. The computer could be used by someone other than the owner of the connection. There could be a wifi connection that other users, including unauthorized ones, could be using that IP address. Finally, a time stamp doesn’t contribute much into proving that a copyrighted work has been uploaded. The alleged incident in question happened over BitTorrent, but no website was given, so who really knows where the evidence was gathered in the first place?

The turn of events seems to resemble the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) deciding that they don’t want the trial broadcasted over the internet. The copyright industry said that the whole purpose of file-sharing lawsuits is to educate the public, yet objected to idea that the case should be broadcasted over the internet. The same sort of contradiction can be seen in the Davenport case. The whole idea is to educate the public, but now they don’t want their own letters being published, claiming it’s copyright infringement.

One might argue that the reason that Davenport Lyons don’t want the letters published in the first place is because they don’t want their letters subject to public or any real legal scrutiny. It’s much easier to attack a single individual singled out rather than attacking a single individual with the public sphere watching. It’s little wonder why the copyright industry has been seen as a bully throughout the years really. If they truly feel they are in the right, why the need to hide their activities in the first place?

It’s been quite a year in 2008 for British citizens. There’s plenty of issues surrounding privacy and digital rights that have been either ongoing or starting up in 2008 that almost makes it a promise that people in 2009 will see interesting things happen. In the process, the Open Rights Group (ORG) is also getting a new executive director. So, in order to catch up on what’s going on, we interviewed ORG’s Becky Hogge and Jim Killock.

ZeroPaid: It’s a new year for the Open Rights Group (ORG) and there’s a new face, Jim Killock. For those who are less familiar with Jim, who is Jim, what are some of the past things Jim has done in the past and what does Jim bring to the table for Open Rights Group and, ultimately, the digital rights conscious?

Becky: When we put out the call for a new ED back in Autumn last year, I was astounded by the quality of the applications we received. Jim stood out because of his role at the Green Party. From the outside, I’d seen the Greens change significantly over the time Jim was with them – from taking the collective decision to elect a leader, to appointing a dedicated spokesperson on intellectual property issues (the first UK party to do this), to launching privacy-aware campaigns like “Census Alert”. When I realised Jim had, to a large extent, been behind a lot of that, I thought “hey, ORG needs some of that”.

ORG is at a stage now where its reputation is fairly established among the technical community, the media and policy makers. What I see Jim bringing to the table is the ability to broaden the base of support we enjoy among non-technical people here in the UK – to take the ORG mission to more people.

Jim: I’d like to thank Becky for all her hard work, which has brought ORG to the successful position it is in today. Whatever I do this year will be building on the very solid work she has done for ORG over the last two years..

Anyone who uses technology is affected by the changes that the new digital culture brings. There are choices that society can make, that will make our world better or worse for citizens.

I am certain that more and more people are realizing how much digital culture has changed their lives, much more in fact than governments and industry realize. However, people’s everyday perceptions that things have changed does not mean they are engaged in a dialogue with the people making our laws – they are not being talked to at all most of the time. ORG can help bridge that gap, and I’d like to see many more people who are technology users get involved in that debate through ORG.

ZeroPaid: It seems that as we enter 2009, there’s a number of issues being brought into the new year. In ORG’s latest news release, the first issue that is being brought up this “modernization” of communications interception brought on by the Home Office. What sort of things will ORG be looking for that would make them speak out and how will you respond?

Jim: Next month, Org will be looking closely at the Home Office’s plans to “modernise” the interception of communications in the UK. It’s been widely reported that this will include plans to centrally collect communications traffic data (who you contact, where and when) from ISPs and telcos and bring them under the control of a Government agency. This would create an archive of the communications activity of every UK citizen – a resource that would dramatically alter the relationship between the citizen and the state.

As we’ve seen with electronic elections, “modernisation” is a weasel word. Networked, digital technology changes the game, and can have a dramatic – and in this case unacceptable – effect on civil rights if implemented in a thoughtless way.

ZeroPaid: The issue of copyright term extension in Britain has been, throughout 2008, a major issue ORG followed closely. We’ve had the politician that objected to the legislation in the house to stop the legislation, we’ve had the Gower’s report and several other occurrences where it seemed to make sense for the government to reject copyright term extension. Strangely enough, here we are in 2009 with the British government seemingly leaning towards extending the term anyway. First of all, it must be frustrating to see this sort of thing happen, but is there any indication that points to how we got here in the first place in this debate and what will likely be the next step ORG plans on doing in all of this?

Becky: *sigh*. You’re right, it is frustrating. All the evidence points against extending term, but the sad fact is that the record industry have invested massive resources into lobbying for this change in the law, and we can’t match that investment. They have people who can go to Brussels every day, and they fly over rock stars too, which has a predictable effect on policy-makers (if you look at our Culture Secretary’s speech where he indicates the UK might reconsider its stance on term, he opens it saying how cool it was for him to play guitar with Feargal Sharkey).

One of the reasons ORG was formed was to counter record industry lobbying, but we’ll never have the same level of resources they have. What we do have, is the voice of the thousands of supporters of our campaign against term extension. If even half of the 14,000+ people who signed our petition against copyright term extension wrote to their MEP to let them know their concerns, we’d win the argument.

People don’t realise what a strong weapon their voice is.

ZeroPaid: There was quite an event with the Freedom, Not Fear campaign that really raised awareness of a general encroachment on the right to privacy in general through technology on an international level. Meanwhile, there’s new legislation in countries like Australia and India that increases surveillance on the general public. Do you see anything new happening in Britain later on in the year that raises even further questions about personal privacy online or even offline for that matter?

Jim: The Intercept “modernisation” programme is the big question here, but Government also have plans to fast-track data-sharing initiatives through Parliament, and the roll-out of the ID card will continue apace.

Plus we’re still waiting to hear from Government over whether they plan to act on illicit filesharers – almost all the proposals they had on the table last year were highly unfriendly to privacy, and frequently seem to take legal processes out of the courts and into automated company procedures.

In a sense I feel we need to create a positive agenda for privacy – digital technology has undoubtedly changed the game here and we need to ask how we want our dignity and security protected in a digital age. Privacy is a fundamental right – it’s about how we treat each other as human beings.

ZeroPaid: There’s been increasing pressure on ISPs throughout the world to either implement a so-called “three strike” policy (like what France is trying to implement in the European Union for instance) or to just generally filter the internet to try and disrupt file-sharing. Has there been any new developments that affects the British? If so, what does ORG plan on doing about this?

Becky: We sent a long submission to the Government (PDF) on this back in 2008, and we’re waiting for them to respond.

ZeroPaid: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Jim: We’re moving to an era where governments are making deep decisions about the future legal and technical infrastructure of the net. They need to talk to the users. The net isn’t just an enormous shopping centre: nearly all of the UK’s top visited sites are about people talking to each other and sharing their own content, like Facebook and Youtube.

But governments are prone to react to agendas that their civil servants, lobbyists and business put to them. That’s why ORG and people like you, reading this, need to help shape the net for citizens.

Over the next year, we intend to make ORG’s website more of a campaigning tool, to let you make your own voice heard. If you live in the UK, you should think about talking to your MP or MEP face to face about issues like copyright and internet privacy. Politicians need to know that there will be votes lost if they don’t wake up to the agenda the digital age brings.

—

We would like to thank ORG’s Becky Hogge and Jim Killock for taking time out of their busy schedules to do this interview with us.

It seems to be the latest thing for the Recording Industry Association of America – hire different firms to pretend to be an unbiased source of information on the debates of p2p. While far from the first time this has happened, it seems as though it has been recently practiced in Britain.

In a report posted on Silicon.com, John McKinlay of the law firm DLA Piper discusses some of the activities going on in Britain. He names the infamous Dream Pinball 3D case from two months ago. He also brings in the case of the Italian government blocking The Pirate Bay from last month and the British ISPs folding to pressure and agreeing to act as the copyright police of two months ago.

While he brings up some older developments, he also furnishes his piece with big scary paragraphs like these:

Secondly, the same technology that is being used to download files is also the downfall of those being caught. Certain programs leave traces on the internet which can be followed all the way back to the offending computer.

Thirdly, the sheer number of people being pursued has dramatically increased. Solicitors involved in these cases are targeting thousands of file-sharers at once. Court orders are being issued in bulk, which allow aggrieved companies to demand payment or see the infringers face the threat of expensive court action.

with massive pressure on bandwidth from the likes of YouTube and, more recently, the hugely successful BBC iPlayer, ISPs have recognised that taking action against illegal file-sharers is very much in their interests too. The reason is simple: it is often those who are engaged in illegal activity who are using the largest quantities of this increasingly scarce resource.

With the tools now in place, content owners are stepping up their campaign to persuade people at a basic level that it just doesn’t add up to share files illegally. Where fines and costs can easily reach four figures for games, songs or videos costing a fraction of that amount, consumers don’t need to be caught every time for the pain to be very real.

First of all, as stated numerous times before, the technology that is suppose to be behind the detection of filesharing has been the downfall of rights holders. That fact alone completely defeats the statement that the technology behind file-sharing is the downfall of the user because it has been shown in at least two studies, one in Australia and one by Internet Evolution, both conclude that Deep Packet Inspection can’t stop unauthorized file-sharing.

Secondly, he states that lawsuits have dramatically increased without naming any specific incident outside of the Dream Pinball 3D case. Have lawsuits dramatically increased? Do tell.

Finally, the piece, particularly with the last paragraph we selected, seems like a simple re-wording of the propaganda campaign by the Motion Picture Association which says that with file-sharing, the risks are not worth it. With deliberately missed points and practically rewording a copyright industries press release or two, it leads one to wonder if this really is someone working for the copyright industry.

A closer investigation reveals that McKinley is a British lawyer, so is suppose to have credentials in British law. Then again, who exactly does DLA Piper represent?

Wikipedai explains, “DLA Piper’s clients range from multinational, Global 1,000 and Fortune 500 enterprises to emerging companies developing industry-leading technologies. DLA Piper represents more than half of the top 250 Fortune 500 clients and nearly half of the FTSE 350 or their subsidiaries.”

So, it’s interest is pretty much in consulting businesses. Rather telling, but that’s not explaining a whole lot. So we did some further investigation on the matter and came acrossed this telling article from earlier this year:

Armey, a lobbyist at DLA Piper, is expected to be on Capitol Hill today with Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) and Tom Lee of the American Federation of Musicians to promote the Performance Rights Act of 2007.

Plugged by the musicFIRST Coalition, none of the materials on the event identifies that Armey represents RIAA. And, this isn’t the first time he’s lobbied for the bill without expressly stating his lobbying interests.

In a Washington Times Op-Ed March 6, Armey argued against radio’s exemption, calling it a “baffling and unjustifiable exemption from paying the performers of music when they use their music to make a profit.”

While Armey’s essay was followed by an addendum that included his position at DLA Piper and as a former lawmaker from Texas, it left off that he lobbies for RIAA.

So not only has DLA Piper lobbied the US congress in the interests of the RIAA, but deliberately attempted to hide the fact that the RIAA paid sums of money to act in their legal interests.

While this doesn’t detract from the worrying move that the ISPs caved to pressure and agreed to curtail to certain interests at the expense of their own customers, trying to stretch the truth to the point of misleading isn’t helpful either – especially by those that could very easily have financial interests to do so.

In the last couple of months, copyright term extension in Britain seems to have become a dormant topic. The last major movement in this field came back in early March where a British MP objected to Copyright Term Extension legislation. Now, the Open Rights Group is reporting that top legal advisers are saying that, among other things, “The proposed Copyright Extension Directive will damage European creative endeavour and innovation beyond repair.”

Said Gavin from the Open Rights Group, this comes at a time with “the confusion and disillusionment of Ireland’s rejection of the Lisbon Treaty still ringing in the Commissions ears”

The letter (PDF) to José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission contains the following:

According to press reports, a draft directive extending the term of copyright for sound recordings by 45 years to 95 years is about to be adopted by the Commission (”before the summer break of 2008″). This Copyright Extension Directive, proposed by Commissioner Mccreevy, is likely to damage seriously the reputation of the Commission. It is a spectacular kowtow to one single special interest group: the multinational recording industry (Universal, Sony/BMG, Warner and EMI) hiding behind the rhetoric of “aging performing artists”.

The Commission is required to conduct an impact study for each directive it proposes. We, the leading European centres for intellectual property policy research, have collectively reviewed the empirical evidence. Our findings are unanimous. The proposed Copyright Extension Directive will damage European creative endeavour and innovation beyond repair.

That’s got to leave a mark. The impact assessment doesn’t seem to touch on the subject lightly either (PDF). FRom the impact assessment:

From the point of view of the Internal Market, the term of protection for phonogram producers does not cause particular concern since the term has been harmonised in the Community and also been incorporated by the 10 new Member States. (…) Moreover, it seems that public opinion and political realities in the EU are such as not to support an extension in the term of protection. Some would even argue that the term should be reduced. At this stage, therefore, time does not appear to be ripe for a change, and developments in the market should be further monitored and studied.”5 It is indeed hard to see how extending exclusive rights to the catalogue of recorded music for another 45 years would benefit society. Following years of fierce and sustained lobbying by the trade bodies of the record industry, however, the copyright unit of the Internal Market Directorate is currently drafting the text of the extension directive which the European Commission aims to adopt as a formal proposal to the European Council and the European Parliament “before the summer break of 2008”. It is still possible for the Commission to see sense, in particular the commissioners who speak on competition (Neelie Kroes), consumer protection (Meglena Kuneva), enterprise and industry (Günter Verheugen), the information society (Viviane Reding), and science and research (Janez Potočnik).

In order to assist rational policy making, leading research institutes called a meeting at Bournemouth University in May 2008. Collectively, we have reviewed the empirical evidence on the issue of term extension.

The impact assessment suggests the following:

• We have seen no evidence that living artists as a whole would benefit decisively from an extension of exclusive rights held by record companies. The benefits will fall to those who need it least: already wealthy performers, and their estates and record companies.
• An exclusive term of protection of 50 years should be more than sufficient to cover the investment horizon of record producers. Any retrospective protection is in effect a windfall that will negatively affect access to, and exploitation of the back catalogues of recorded music.
• While the empirical evidence is missing, it is simply preposterous to claim both, that term extension does not make any difference to consumer prices, and that record companies need term extension to boost their revenues.
• the effects of term reduction should be as thoroughly investigated as the proposed extension.

With this fresh blow to the copyright term extension in Britain, it’s unlikely that the issues will go away any time soon so long as there is a push to extend it.