UK Copyright Extension in Exchange for Censorship?

Awel writes "The UK opposition leader, David Cameron, says in a speech to the British Phonographic Industry that his party would work to extend the copyright term to 70 years and crack down on piracy. But in return, labels would have to agree to bear more 'social responsibility', which appears to translate into avoiding lyrics that glorify 'an anti-learning culture, truancy, knifes, violence, guns, misogyny'. He doesn't spell out how this would be achieved in practice. This follows the publication in December of a UK government report recommending that the standard copyright term in Europe remain at 50 years (and not be raised to 70 or 95 years)."

Historic precedent

Looks like copyright is returning to its roots..

Re:Historic precedent

The industry isn't seeking this--it's the government. "We'll give you this thing you really really want (extended copyrights), and in return you can do us this little favor, and censor your artists." The music industry is evil, no doubt, but they'd rather be able to sell whatever the hell they want to and own the copyrights forever...Censorship is work for them, and it will alienate artists, and art isn't something that lends itself well to censorship, so they may see actual losses coming out of it, which is the last thing they want.

So what you're really saying is, "Government is returning to its roots" and that is correct.

Re:

The industry isn't seeking this--it's the government.

Er, no, the government isn't seeking this. The Conservative Party is seeking this. The Conservatives aren't in power, Labour are.

Re:Historic precedent

It is not the government, it's the party that wants to be in government but isn't.
The conservatives have always been big businesses bitches and this simply reiterates it.
This is why any self respecting geek should avoid voting conservative (think of them as the republicans, only slightly less insane).. hell, it's pretty hard to tell the conservatives and labour apart nowadays. Lib Dems or the Greens are probably the best parties if you want a slightly (ever so slightly, lets face facts pretty much all parties suck) better government.

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So what you're really saying is, "Government is returning to its roots"

No, it is copyright returning to its roots. Early copyright has its root in government control of the printing presses.

Re:Historic precedent

So what you're really saying is, "Government is returning to its roots" and that is correct.

government censorship and copyright go hand in hand.

copyright originally started as a government sponsored censorship program as the excerpt from this article [questioncopyright.org] states:

The first copyright law was a 1556 censorship statute in England. It granted the Company of Stationers, a London guild, exclusive rights to own and run printing presses. Company members registered books under their own name, not the author's name, and these registrations could be transferred or sold only to other Company members. In exchange for their government-granted monopoly on the book trade, the Stationers aided the government's censors, by controlling what was printed, and by searching out illegal presses and books -- they even had the right to burn unauthorized books and destroy presses. They were, in effect, a private, for-profit information police force.

so, in the UK, the government granting copyright terms in order to censor the works is a return to the roots of copyright.

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I doubt they'd forget. I can see them laughing about it at parties and talking about how stupid the politicians were for handing them such an all-around win for them. They'd talk about the pledge whenever it's convenient to their purposes, and they'd ask f

ah, yes. . .

Tis a glorious day indeed when the artists are told by the "record labels" that because of "nasty little law" they'll have to choose their lyrics from a small set of "acceptable words." Of course, the record labels get 70 years on the copy right so all is

Ooooh Phonographic

Does it say something about me that when I glanced at the article I thought it said Pornographic industry?

What a deal.

So Cameron is basically promising to do his part to make speech less free, so long as the labels promise to do their part to make speech less free? Score.

Re:What a deal.

So Cameron is basically promising to do his part to make speech less free, so long as the labels promise to do their part to make speech less free? Score.

Yeah, not free (as in speech) in exchange for not free (as in beer). Excellent.

Re:What a deal.

Enjoy saying that while you can. Soon enough it will be illegal to talk about free beer.

How many things are wrong with this idea?

> work to extend the copyright term to 70 years and crack down on piracy

Right... because the first thing to do in the fight against piracy is to broaden the definition of piracy to include twenty years worth of extra music. In other news, Cameron announced that as the first step in a crackdown on murder, the definition of "murder" will been expanded to include drunk-driving. He said that government claims that this would increase reported cases of murder by 12000% as "exagerated".

> He argued that extending the term would give an "incentive to the music industry to digitise both older and niche repertoire which
> more people can enjoy at no extra cost".

Right... so, extending the copyright term to include works which are currently in the public domain, and thus free and legal to use for any purpose will help people enjoy these works at "no extra cost"? In other news, as part of a campaign to try and get kids to exercise more, Cameron announced plans to put all public playparks into the hands of private companies that will charge for their use.

> Mr Cameron said: "Most people think these are all multimillionaires living in some penthouse flat. The reality is that many of
> these are low-earning session musicians who will be losing a vital pension."...

> ...Sir Cliff Richard, The Who and Sir Paul McCartney backed the campaign to extend the 50-year term

...enough said

Re:What a deal.

David Cameron almost had me starting to consider the posibility that he had actually made some headway into changing the political direction of the Tories, but no: nothing has changed. Let's pay off big businesses in exchange for more social/cultural control and censorship.

horrible situation

so the government decides what may hear, and the recording industry what we may listen to. great.

Re:

And this differs from the current situation in what way?

Re:

in a way you're right, of course. the majors do control the listening of the masses, and govt does enforce decency laws.

but this new proposal would also effect indie labels (and perhaps their artists), who would reap whatever benefits extended copyright

Pointless deal.

Look at what music has become. A great way to express your opinion huh?

Think about it! The whole thing is ridiculous. The labels decide what the artists sing so it's not really the artists opinion and the labels just make them sing what gives the most mone

Nanny state

Well, this puts me right off David Cameron.

What's up with the UK recently? It's bizarre. People complain like hell about the EU imposing laws on the UK, but if it is the UK gov doing it, nobody bats an eyelid.

For example, smoking. I hate smoking, it's horrid. But if people want to do it, they should be able to go to pubs where it's allowed. If people want to listen to music that glorifies "an anti-learning culture, truancy, knifes, violence, guns, misogyny" then they should be able to. And if people want to copy music or books or whatever of an artist that is well dead and buried then they should be able to do that too.

Re:

Well, this puts me right off David Cameron.

As more than one pundit has noted, Tony Blair's legacy is now obvious: it is David Cameron. True to form, he started out very promising, saying lots of things we all wanted to hear, but now the spin has starte

Re:

Well, this puts me right off David Cameron.

If it took this to put you off David Cameron, you haven't been paying attention to what a knee-jerk-politics empty-headed photo-op publicity-seeker he is.

but if it is the UK gov doing it, nobody bats an eyelid.

T

Re:Nanny state

No, if people want to do it, they should be able to do it in the privacy of their own home, where it won't endanger the lives of others.

I bet the chance of having a car accident after drinking just one pint is hundreds of times higher than the chance of you getting cancer from someone smoking near you. And sometimes people have more than one pint before driving home, don't they? And so we should ban drinking alcohol except at home.

Not too keen on that? Enjoy a drink at the pub, do you?

Re:Nanny state

I bet the chance of having a car accident after drinking just one pint is hundreds of times higher than the chance of you getting cancer from someone smoking near you?

Well, the effects of most car accidents are usually not fatal - in fact, most accidents don't involve injury. The effects of lung cancer and heart disease are a damn sight more serious than a smashed headlight.

But if we limit it to fatalities, the overall number of car accident fatalities in the UK in 2006 was 2920 (DoT statistics). The Gloag report in the BMJ estimated that 25% of those fatalities were attributable to alcohol - about 730, but the majority of those involved excess alcohol (2 pints or more). Lets estimate a low majority (55%) - 402. So I'm estimating that we could save 328 deaths a year by banning alcohol except in the home. But this also assumes that no-one drinking at home gets behind the wheel of a car. And this is also assuming that everyone who gets killed is an innocent victim and not the drunk driver. I reckon the figure of lives saveable is probably around 80 a year (50% fewer from lower drink driving, and 50% lower than that because it's not the drunk driver topping himself)

The number of deaths attributable to second hand smoke in the workplace was 517 (Jamroznik, published in the BMJ). That's excluding those who also are exposed to smoke at home. So by banning smoking in public places, we can save the vast majority of those people - about 500 a year.

So I think you'd lose that bet. You're more likely to catch disease from a smoker than get twatted by someone who's drunk a pint of beer and got behind the wheel of a car. Anyway - it doesn't really follow. Alcohol consumption does not render the environment inherently more toxic (it renders it more dangerous in concert with other activities); pumping toxins and carcinogens into the local atmosphere in a poorly ventilated area is obviously more directly dangerous to a persons local environment.

--Ng

Re:Nanny state

I thought about that argument and then I realized "Well, they could always goto a pub that doesn't allow smoking."

Just because you *feel* entitled to go out in the world and have it be a warm and fuzzy place that lives up to your every expectation and personal choice, doesn't mean you are.

If a pub owner person wants to allow smoking and attracts those clients, then they shouldn't be legally prohibited. You're more than welcome to use the one across the street that has a no smoking sign in the window.

Re:

You can banty around high minded ideas relating to personal freedom all you want but seeing the law in person will give you a much different impression.

New York City passed the law several years ago and it has been AMAZINGLY successful. It has been popular

Re:Nanny state

New York City passed the law several years ago and it has been AMAZINGLY successful. It has been popular with smokers and non-smokers alike.

If it was that successful, pubs would have banned smoking themselves, to make more money. The fact that it hasn't speaks volumes.

They banned smoking in pubs in Ireland, and something like one in three pubs closed down. The same is happening in England, with many semi-rural pubs turning into restaurants. Eventually all there'll be left is trendy inner-city wine bars, and another great tradition will be lost to the politically-correct brigade.

Unfortuanately in modern Britain, all the major parties are control freaks, and the minor parties are all nazis and communists, so there's no-one to vote for. And they wonder why voting turnouts are so low...

Re:Nanny state

I believe the OP was suggesting that there should be some pubs where it's allowed.

If local councils were allowed to license, say, 5% of pubs in their area to allow smoking, on condition of having good air conditioning, not allowing children in even with families, and an extra license fee, for example, it's highly unlikely that anyone would go to that pub, or indeed work in that pub, who didn't want to be in a smoky environment.

I think it would be a pretty fair solution. Most pubs remain smoke-free, but smokers willing to sit in a filthy haze of carcinogens are able to, surrounded by other smokers willing to sit in a filthy haze of carcinogens.

It would also allow places like cigar clubs to still exist.

Dangers to freedom...

To all the people who doubt the social relevance of the "copyright reformist" debate... here is a perfect example of why we should be concerned. Not only is there yet another push for copyright extension, but this extension is being used to bargain for government censorship too.

The irony, of course, is that one of the main problems with effectively-perpetual copyright is the many restrictions it places on open commentary and free speech. Perpetual and rigidly-enforced copyrights essentially produce a chilling effect in the domain of free public discussion. Since copyright is a government-granted monopoly, it is hard to not label this as censorship.

So we get a double-dose of censorship: copyright extensions limit our ability to freely discuss and produce derivative art of the culture we are a part of... and these same extensions are used as a lever to enforce a government-mandated version of decency. In my mind this seriously calls into question the notion that copyrights are there as a service to society, encouraging distribution of artwork to the people... or have we given up on that interpretation of copyright entirely?

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The irony, of course, is that one of the main problems with effectively-perpetual copyright is the many restrictions it places on open commentary and free speech. Perpetual and rigidly-enforced copyrights essentially produce a chilling effect in the domai

Knifes?

which appears to translate into avoiding lyrics that glorify 'an anti-learning culture, truancy, knifes, violence, guns, misogyny'.

I have only one question: What are knifes and why is someone glorifying them?

Re:

I'm pretty sure that counts as two questions.

The glorification of an anti-learning culture is killing the ability to spell and do basic math.

Re:Knifes?

Ya see, that's the danger of growing up in an anti-learning culture.

Re:

knifes are a shortish mans pants that cause problems in the streets as they force you to have a silly walk. They cause huge problems in traffic and cause the police to waste time breaking up gatherings of people staring at people who wear knifes.

http://ww [sillywalksgenerator.com]

Probably doing a standard politician thing

Well, considering he was at the British Phonographic Industry trying to drum up votes any politician worth his salt would tell them what they want to hear and therefore why they should vote for his party.

I hope he's lying to them as usual as per UK ministers' standard operating procedures. If this makes it into the manifesto then I cannot support the party, and if there are enough likeminded people that will cost them more votes than pandering to the racket.

Apologies if I come over as a bit bitter and twisted, but a poll of my peers (8 of us, professional, 40 years old-ish) has indicated that none of us believe either of the two main parties represent our wishes.

Holy crap.

His offer is that if the recording industry will give up some of their own free-speech rights, the government will reward them by curtailing citizens' free-speech rights?

huh?

music about "anti-learning culture, truancy, knifes, violence, guns, misogyny" is street music which, gasp, is sold on the street

by the time it gets in the hands of the kids of these fine legislators, it has been picked up by a label and redistributed. stopping that part of the process won't lead to the death of street music, it will just mean that street music will get distributed by other means

kids are stupid. they listen to stupid things. then they grow up. and become responsible. and become members of the house of commons. i wonder how many of this guys peers, if not himself, were getting stoned in the back of a car listening to "we don't need no education..." and other wonders of pink floyd's "the wall" 25 years ago

you can't stop teenagers from being retarded. that's just what teenage years are all about

hey david cameron: "How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat!"

Helmet

Fortunately the majority of British voters see Cameron for what he is; someone who'll do and say anything to get back into power. It will be a sad election that sees his greasy mug in Downing St.

That said, Brown doesn't exactly make me jump for joy either

If it works that way...

Can it go the other way too? Can they lower the copyright term in exchange for reducing censorship?

So many mistakes...

The entire text of this speech makes me sick. It is full of lies and unsubstantiated claims. Here's a random assortment:

And at a time of technological revolution, you have adapted to changes in consumer behaviour with great ingenuity, launching online and mobile services.

(Emphasis mine.) Ha! That's a laughable analysis of an industry desperately trying to maintain the status quo.

First, how do we prevent the massive fraud that is carried out against your industry every day through copyright theft.

I know it's been said a million times on Slashdot, but: calling copyright infringement "theft" is imprecise (and legally at least incorrect) and is an intentional attempt to bias the debate.

And second, how do we protect your investments in the long-term by looking at the issue of copyright extension in the digital age.

"Copyright extension in the digital age." The irony! Because we live in a world where information can be transmitted very quickly, and fads come and go much more quickly, and everything is being sped up... clearly the solution is to provide temporal extensions to all present laws! ~sarcasm~

Very few people would go into a shop, lift a CD from the shelves and just walk out with it. But for some reason, many are happy to buy pirate CDs or illegally download music.

This is a classic fallacy. Rather than dwell on the obvious differences between theft of physical property and unauthorized duplication of data, I ask a question: If the people of your country are obviously treating the two activities very differently (both in practical and moral terms), shouldn't you instead search out the root cause of those differences? Perhaps the people unconsciously realize that there is a fundamental difference!

This alone has cost the music industry as much as £1.1 billion in lost retail sales since 2004.

Prove it.

We wouldn't tolerate fraud on such a massive scale in any other industry... so why is there such little will on the part of government, businesses and individuals to confront it in the music industry?

Again, maybe you should use this as a clue to the fact that those figures of "lost sales" may not be realistic? Maybe you should search out the reasons why your citizens bear very little sympathy for this industry...

Copyright matters because it is the way artists are rewarded and businesses makes its money and invests in the future. So copyright theft has to be treated like other theft.

Correction: "Copyright matters because it is one way artists can be rewarded and business may make money." (The second sentence is a non sequitur.)

If you cannot get protection from illegal activity, where is the incentive to continue innovating?

That's a very good question... and since you evidently don't know the answer, you should spend time talking to the millions of artists worldwide who release their material under a creative commons license (or implicitly allow others to access their work by posting it online freely, e.g. YouTube), and the huge community of free software coders. (Note: I agree that free software coders benefit from the legal framework of the GPL, and others benefit from the legal framework of the CC licenses... but not in the way that he is implying.)

This only covers the first 1/4 of the speech. Again, I'm disgusted by the skewed view of the entire debate that is being presented. This results from either paying little to no attention to what is going on, or an intentional misrepresentation in order to garner the favor of a particular industry. In either case, it's not a good place from which to start setting social policy.

Tit for tat

Translation: "We will limit the public's rights to creative works if you help us run our nanny state." Who does David Cameron work for again?

Written by Gordon Brown's PR firm?

Poor Mr Brown has been in power for what, little over a week now. So far it has been nothing but bad news and terrorists.

And here comes this, a gift from heaven pointing out his opponent as a right fool. Coincidence? I think not. A PR firm worth the hefty fees and future House of Lords appointments they will get? That's more like it!

Forfeit copyright for non-compliance?

So, if an artist transgresses any of those rules, all his works forfeits copyright? Sounds good to me...

Wow they really want my vote

I may have passed of Copyright extensions in return for no DRM, but copyright extensions and more censorship, that's a great way for them to get my vote.

BTW the conservatives are the opposition and aren't in government.

I am a writer and I object to 50 years.

Let's be honest. 99% of the time, for a software, books, music, and movies, 95% of the profit is in over the first 5 years. After that, if you get any sales at all, they are dribles in. A slight exception is for series books, where if someone reads book #5 and likes it, they might go out and buy #1-4.

Still, that generally only pumps up your profit for an additional 5-10 years.

After 20 years on sale, your profit is practically nothing ... UNLESS you wrote a masterpiece.

But if you wrote a masterpiece then:

1. You probably got rich by then anyway.

2. The public wants you to WRITE ANOTHER ONE

3. A sequel/new book would earn a ton more money and also can pump up sales of the first thing.

Net Net, it is in the PUBLIC'S interest that after just 10 years, copyrights run out. AND it does not significantly affect any creator's income.

The real reason why we have copyright laws over 10 years is not for the writer, but instead for the major corporations that can make money lots of tiny sales 15, 20 or 50 years after creation of the author. It is pretty much ONLY them that really benefit, at the expense of society by a LOT.

Now, there is one other factor - derivative work. Movies based on books etc. That kind of thing it is reasonable to allow the original writer to retain. But honestly it should ALWAYS be the original writer, i.e. the right should not be saleable. That prevents them from selling it to a corp for a quick profit and then having the corp. massacre their work. By requirin the original actual author to give always give consent, we can increase the quality of the work.

Retroactive changes...

So the music industry want to retroactively change the terms of the license. Thing is we already have already aggreed a contract. In particular I have a number of spoken word audiobooks, the original text of which is long out of copyright. I had a reasonably expectation when I purchased those audiobooks that the copyright on the recording of the books would lapse 50 years after it was made. I have made special note of the dates, and fully intend when the 50 years is up to release these professionally made recordings by leading performers on the internet (or equivalent) free for all.

What gives them the right to change the terms of that implied contract, and can I demand my money back? Alternatively if they have broken the contract can I just ignore it as well?

Re:

Hmmmm.... Your comment got me thinking. You describe an "implied contract" between a consumer and the corporation. I agree with that: the consumers were sold something ("here is a work... it will enter public domain in X years"), whose value is then afterw

Translation:

"We'll allow you guys to soak up even more money that you don't deserve, as long as you contribute to our Big Brother-like atmosphere!" Should I take solace that this will almost certainly get laughed off by Labour?

Orwellian Politics

This illustrates to me the symbiotic relationship governments and businesses have with each other in democracies. In their words it's protecting the consumer from themselves while making music more available. In the double-think tradition of Orwell this makes sense. Too bad it doesn't seem like there is a choice nowadays in democracies. You get to vote for different people, but it's all the same basic ideology; the corrupt supporting the corrupt. That is, businesses supporting politicians, and your average voter being fed the same old FUD, appeals to emotion, etc. without any De facto choice or say in the matter. The popular vote really doesn't seem to be supporting anything popular. Career politicians supporting career business people who support career politicians. It's the mobius strip of Western progress.

Profit for censorship

Economic benefits in return for social responsibility. Read: more profit if you apply (self-)censorship to ensure the restoration of Victorian values. The next step will be ofcourse to ban anything that is critical, obscene, rebellious or hurtful to the feelings of the majority. I can recall at least two other regimes from the last century that offered benefits to individuals, companies and organisations, when they would apply censorship and spy on family, friends, neighbours and employees. This is all very much in-line with recent developments in the UK. Oher examples are: many in the UK think, supported by populist politicians, press and media, that there are terrorists and child molestors on every street corner (ofcourse all non-British). Consequently, there are more and more calls to ditch human rights legislation and to cut freedom of speech, all in the name of fighting terrorism and anti-social behaviour. People get political positions through cash donations (cash for honours). Police kill innocent people and no one gets charged. Two-year old in a pram cannot enter a supermarket wearing a hoodie. Fourteen-year old girl gets arrested for chalking love signs and butterflies on a pavement. Father gets arrested for making pictures of his son playing football, not having a license. All social-economic problems here are caused by artists, scientists, immigrants, teenagers or the European Union, so they should and will be punished. The true culprits, politicians, laywers, the popular media and greedy business people walk free and get rewarded for their opportunism.

Exactly backwards

To achieve the aim of maximizing the quality of the culture transmitted by copyrighted works, the term of copyright should be shortened, and the rights of citizens to make certain types of copies even within that term should be expanded. Why? Because the larger portion of the crassness in our culture is there in service of commercial interest - commerce whose shape and nature is in part determined by the ecological niche allowed it by our extravagant copyrights and other legal structures which are designed to amplify the profits of our largest corporate players.

The proof of this? Compare the musical offerings of small, independent labels to that of the majors. There is proportionately far less lowest-denominator sexuality, gangsta worship, women-hatred - and there's far more actual aural art as compared to the cheap sonic wallpaper the big labels prefer to sell us. The same differences can be found between the offerings of the small presses and the big publishing houses. And when the small recording labels and presses do release something with sex or violence featured, it's usually of much greater artistic worth, and doesn't trivialize either the sex or the violence the way the big corporations prefer to.

Unfettered capitalism by smaller players is the cure to our cultural failings. But they will not prosper as long as government regulation tilts the field towards the largest corporate interests. Long copyright terms are one brick in the wall preventing the free flourishing of the arts. And it's the lack of better-done art which leaves the public hungry enough to accept the empty calories the large, government-favored firms want to sell. Those empty calories will inevitably be dressed up in sex and violence, because the higher, more mindful forms of expression require levels of art largely incompatible with corporate packaging, and in any case tend to contribute to unwelcome challenges to the dumbed-down public mentality which proves so pliable to our political and corporate masters.

You'd think a Conservative in Britain would realize that this current regime is playing mostly into the hands of New Labor, and that a return to the more conservative form of capitalism, where small players are encouraged to do their entrepreneurial best, and corporations towards the monopolistic end of the spectrum are restrained or even broken up by government, rather than treated as its special partners - which is the very neo-fascism that New Labor has led Britain into.