News 

Currently the copyright on sound recordings is 50 years. But in the States, under the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, this was extended to 95 years. And in the UK the music industry is lobbying the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property for an equivalent extension in the UK.

The main rallying cry of the Open Rights Group (ORG) is that it is not just an issue of music copyright, but one of access to British culture. Sound recordings are not synonymous with just music, maintained Suw Charman, chair of the ORG.

'For a marginal amount of new profit, the music industry is seeking to drag down an army of recordings into the quagmire of permissions,' she said. All recordings, whether of wild-life, for example, or historical recordings of local dialects, would be affected. She cited the problems faced by the British Library in digitizing its material.

The obligation to seek copyright holders' permission was already very difficult for 'orphan' recordings. To extend copyright terms to 'life plus 70 years' - which has apparently been proposed by the likes of Cliff Richard (whose own catalogue is about to fall into the public domain) - as is enjoyed by composers, would make this task even more difficult.

At its heart, Charman insists, the extension of copyright broke the balance of the original terms - that in exchange for being granted a limited monopoly over the release of the recordings, the rights holder surrenders their work into the public domain. The public should benefit from keeping their half of the bargain, she declared. It is for the wider good of British culture, she insisted that original art works, be they from

ADVERTISEMENT

Shakespeare, Bernard Shaw or Harold Pinter, eventually finds their way into the public domain.

According to Becky Hogge, Director of the open Democracy group, which has been campaigning on this issue, the music industry's three main arguments involve the issue of maintaining 'innovation' in the market, preserving the income of artists in their retirement and controlling the quality of the re-issues market.

On the first point the she points to recent research that seven out of ten of the best selling albums last year were debut releases (with independent labels accounting for three of those seven, despite only having 15 per cent of the overall market). This indicates, she believes, that we already enjoy a flourishing market, one that is not in need if further protection.

The second argument is spurious, too, she believes. Only a small percentage of artists make any substantial sums from releases, with available figures suggesting the total is as low as two per cent. The chances are, this two per cent are already the very high-earners of the industry, and the other ninety-odd per cent will not have sufficient earnings to consider any form of retirement payment as significant.

On the third point, she points to stats that indicate twice as many re-releases have been made in the EU under existing copyright terms, compared with the USA, which has extended the copyright period. In other words, extending the terms leads to inertia in the market and reduces choice for consumers.

The recent BPI survey was also attacked by Hogge. The leading question - whether UK artists should be afforded the same protection as US equivalents - inevitably lead to a skewed response, she maintained. Wouldn't the UK public also respond that the curators of British culture, such as the British Library, should have equal rights to their US counterparts, she asked.

The Open Rights Group is an organisation - funded by the Joseph Rowntree Trust - that campaigns on issues of digital data rights, aiming to raise public awareness of issues, such as privacy, identity and data protection. You can find its website at www.openrightsgroup.org.

Note that at the event tonight there will be a DJ set by The Chaps, playing a pre-1955 public domain set.