If Music Be The Food Of Technology, Tuck in for free!

THE MIKE BATT GUIDE TO WHAT THE IAN HARGREAVES INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY REVIEW TERMS OF REFERENCE REALLY MEAN

The Government has commissioned an Intellectual Property review, the Hargreaves IP Review which has tasked professor Ian Hargreaves and a team of Chosen Ones to deliver a report making recommendations about whether Intellectual Property (copyrights of songs, films, books. etc) is perhaps a bit too protected, and judging from the Terms Of Reference, there is a suggestion that perhaps copyright protection is getting in the way of the establishment and growth of - well, "growth". They don't specify growth of what - but it's pretty clear they mean growth of the internet delivery/dissemination industry (Google, ISPs, download and streaming sites, etc.,) not the industry which is founded on and caring for the protection of copyright works. Copyright generates lots of money for the country and provides some, not all, artists, writers and entrepreneurs with a living so that they can continue to create high quality art and entertainment for the consumer. The music and film businesses are under heavy threat and are shrinking because of illegal downloading and piracy. The Digital Economy Act, passed just before this government was elected, gives scant, but at least some protection against illegal file sharing - but it puts a massive financial responsibility on the creator or entrepreneur (the music and film industry) to pay for the "policing" of the system. It doesn't help that there is a free appeals system for those who get caught illegally file sharing, so technically, everyone caught doing it could appeal for free, and jam the system. And trust me, they will! If they can throw fire extinguishers off Millbank Tower they can organise a mass appeal against illegal file sharing. It's not rocket surgery.

By the way - I speak as someone who stayed up all night at Millbank watching the results come in, and walked home at 6 am happy that David Cameron would almost certainly become Prime Minister, and I am still a loyal supporter of Cameron and his team. I just think Mr Cameron has some people whispering in his ear, who are very misguided on the matter of the protection of copyright -v- the right of the people to get free music, and the right of startup delivery systems to get a leg-up at the expense of the copyright owners and creators. David made a speech recently saying that Google could never have started up in this country because copyright law is too tight. That is utter bollocks. Sorry David. Steve Hilton, David's senior spin-doctor, is married to Rachel Whetsone, a paid lobbyist-and senior executive of Google. I'm sure there has been no influence there, of course. I'm assured there isn't. The reason Google started up in Silicon Valley is because that's where you go to start up an internet business, that's where the understanding internet entrepreneur banks, investors and technology are.

The british music business (and by the way these are my views as an individual, not officially imparted in my role as Deputy Chairman of the British Phonographic Industry, although I feel passionately about it in that capacity too) - is ready and willing to help Government achieve its aims to create growth so that copyright and technology can hold hands and skip together through the land of milk and honey, but it does rather wear you down when you fight for years to get a rather inadequate copyright protection Act (the DEA) and then see Terms Of Reference for an IP review describing music/film business interests as BARRIERS to growth. Growth of internet companies, you understand, not growth for all.

I think I am a Red Tory, by the way, - having only just read about what they are. I'd never heard of them, but if I've got them right, I AM one; it's what I've always been. You think TORY when it comes to business encouragement, and help for growth, and for good economic management, and you think SOCIALIST when it comes to using that wealth to help the disadvantaged and to give people a leg up to the bright side of life, hopefully using and enabling their own human endeavour. When I was asked to write the music for William Hague's General Election campaign I asked to be assured that the party would be moving to the left (ie to the centre) and was assured that this was indeed all that was human and natural. But it didn't. I felt a bit betrayed, but I've kept on supporting them recently, because I truly believe that DC and his team really are going to try as hard as possible balance the see-saw from the middle.

So, not as an anti-government activist or disgruntled government opponent, but as a concerned member of the artistic working classes (defined as "those who work and would quite like to get paid"), here is my Guide to, or translation of, the Terms Of Reference of the imminent review.

Firstly, here are the REAL terms of reference:.

QUOTE:

Intellectual Property and Growth: Terms of Reference

The Review will develop proposals on how the UK's intellectual property
framework can further promote entrepreneurialism, economic growth and
social and commercial innovation. It will examine the available evidence as to
how far the IP framework currently promotes these objectives, drawing on US
and European as well as UK experience, and focusing in particular on:

• Identification of barriers to growth in the IP system, and how to
overcome them;

• How the IP framework could better enable new business models
appropriate to the digital age.

Among the subjects to which the Review is expected to bring this perspective
are:

• IP and barriers to new internet-based business models, including
information access, costs of obtaining permissions from existing
rights-holders, and investigating what are the benefits of “fair use”
exceptions to copyright and how these might be achieved in the UK;

• The cost and complexity of enforcing IP rights within the UK and
internationally;

• The interaction of the IP and Competition frameworks;

• The cost and complexity to SMEs of accessing IP services to help
them to protect and exploit IP.

The Review will make recommendations:

• on how the IP system nationally and internationally can best work to
promote innovation and growth in the 21st century with a view to
setting the agenda for the long term;

• on what short and medium term measures can be taken now within
the international framework to give the UK a competitive advantage.

The Review will report to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and
Skills and to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in April 2011.

(UNQUOTE).

And now, Da Daarh... here is


THE MIKE BATT GUIDE TO WHAT THE IAN HARGREAVES IP REVIEW TERMS OF REFERENCE REALLY MEAN

Intellectual Property and Growth: Terms of Reference

The Review will develop proposals on how the UK's intellectual property
framework can further promote entrepreneurialism, economic growth and
social and commercial innovation for the interests of internet delivery and dissemination operators.

It will examine the available evidence as to how far the IP framework currently promotes these objectives, drawing on US and European as well as UK experience, and focusing in particular on:

• Identification of barriers put up by creators and copyright owners to growth of the interests of delivery system operators, and how to overcome them;

• How the IP framework could be weakened to enable new internet dissemination operators’ business models appropriate to the digital age, at the expense of artists, writers, performers and entrepreneurs in the IP ownership sector.

Among the subjects to which the Review is expected to bring this perspective
are:

• IP and barriers (put up by creators who seem to want to be paid for their work), to new internet-based business model entrepreneurs, including information access, costs of obtaining permissions from existing rights-holders, and investigating what are the benefits of “fair use” exceptions to copyright and how these might be achieved in the UK, with no examination of whether such “fair use” provisions may be desirable or of benefit and protection to copyright owners and those consumers who benefit from the existence of a rewarded artistic and entrepreneurial rights-owning community

• The cost and complexity of enforcing IP rights within the UK and
internationally, because paying a market value for something just doesn’t seem right, and contracts are so jolly hard to understand and negotiate.

• The interaction of the IP-owning bastards and Competition frameworks;

• The unfairly disadvantageous cost and complexity to internet SMEs of accessing IP services from creators to help them to protect and exploit IP for their advantage and development rather than that of the IP creator or owner.

The Review will make recommendations:

• on how the IP system nationally and internationally can best work to
promote innovation and growth of internet delivery companies in the 21st century with a view to setting the agenda at the expense of creators and IP owners and ultimately the consumer for the long term;

• on what short and medium term measures can be taken now within
the international framework to give the UK internet delivery and retail startups and existing operators a competitive advantage over rights holders.

The Review will report to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and
Skills and to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in April 2011.