So is it fair to say that voting in a Tory majority is in fact a Bad Idea™?
The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 was not enacted by the Tory majority, elected in 2015. Looking into this it was created by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, but that's just the group name, more specifically under the subsection minsitered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe who previously worked for Tescos, the second largest retailer in the world and based in England. Before that she worked in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. So she has a superb grasp of groceries and reading through her parliamentary speeches in the House of Lord she's had an interest in
copyright law for some time, in addition to her usual stuff about cutting unnecessary regulation, improving the UK's broadband and giving grants to small businesses.
Reading through her speech on copyright and parody I found this:
Furthermore, has any analysis of the impact of the exceptions on the UK’s competitive advantage been carried out, in particular on whether it will encourage content companies to contract in other jurisdictions? Rather than encouraging innovation, these provisions could encourage challenge and breach of licensing terms. Will investors now turn away from the UK and invest in content made in other jurisdictions where they can freely negotiate contracts?
In the light of all the above, can my noble friend say whether any new economic impact assessments have been conducted or are contemplated? The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, noting that the instruments are to be reviewed by the Intellectual Property Office no later than April 2019, said:
“We would urge the Government to monitor the impact of the changes from the point of implementation, and in particular to respond effectively if it becomes clear that any negative potential is being realised”.
Which sounds pretty commercialist to me, that notion of people necessitating the best contracts to best exploit their creative works versus giving content creators the most creative freedom at the cost of companies not being able to exclusively exploit creative works for 100 years+. This is probably also a result of companies switching from manufacturing functional and cheap products to functional and stylish products where people are paying for the image, not the product
Image very related, with vast amounts of money by virtue of marketing and the digital era generating value out of whole cloth. So if arstechnica are right, the reason why I reckon the licensing applies to things like furniture you wouldn't expect to need licensing to take photos of and why it sounds like Neville-Rolfe is out of touch with the digital era, it is not because she is - she after all sat over Tesco's diversification into the digital era. It's because by design it's meant to protect the new corporate strategy, of wealth through innovative design as a priority over bulk movement of products (again, see Tescos, where they went from Walmart strategies to branch out into Waitrose-esque ranges from
value to
finest brands. Boing boing has this to say:
The intended target of the law is commercial photographers, whom the UK government has no sympathy for ("The Government considers that photographers and image libraries already bear costs for time and administration when assessing whether they need to obtain clearance when photographing").
Another group likely to be hit by this major copyright extension—publishers of books with pictures of design objects—is also being told to like it or lump it. The Digital Reader spoke with Natalie Kontarsky, associate director for legal and business affairs at the well-known art publisher Thames & Hudson, and she did not mix messages. "The government has actually said ‘you are collateral damage’ in a very sanguine, offhand way. The dark end of the spectrum would be to take books out of circulation and have to pulp. Obviously no one wants to look at that."
Unfortunately, the alternative isn't much better. "Licensing images retrospectively is likely to be a very expensive prospect—in terms of actual licence fees to rightsholders, working out who actually owns the rights and the cost of getting picture researchers involved and people like me on the legal side," Kontarsky told the Reader.
http://boingboing.net/2015/12/12/britons-will-need-copyright-li.html
They also note that while it will probably not be enforced on the average Breton, a sword of damocles need only hit a few people and hang over the heads of many to be effective. That's worse case scenario, which sounds preposterous but a system open to abuse is a system where abuse is possible.
I am greatly concerned by the whole book pulping thing.
Interestingly, searching through her parliamentary speeches (very brief computer searches, it is Christmas Eve after all) I cannot find mentions of copyright in her contributions in regards to the Enterprise bill, which are all on business related subjects as far as I can see and not intellectual propriety rights. There is however a small debate in regards to the Copyright Hub:
Lord Clement-Jones (LD): My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Of course, most of that has been in kind from the catapult. The Minister is well known for her enthusiasm for the Copyright Hub but when is she going to turn that into real hard financial support? This could be a fantastic resource of huge benefit to our creative industries. It is a licensing infrastructure that could be international. Would it not be extraordinary if Singapore, the US and Australia gave more support than the UK Government?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe: My Lords, as we have said from day one, the Copyright Hub needs to stand on its own feet in the longer term. It is linked to the wonderful creative industries worth £77 billion. However, we want the Copyright Hub to succeed, as the noble Lord knows, and that is why we recently agreed to provide an extra £100,000 to cover the core costs for the next four months. We are also financing an independent assessment to examine options for the long-term sustainability of the hub and its development.
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab): My Lords, does the Minister recognise that copyright is a form of monopoly and that, while it is desirable that innovation should be recognised and rewarded, it should always be the object of policy to keep the period of monopoly as short as is reasonably possible so that new ideas can circulate freely and rapidly? Does she also recognise that in the digital era such monopolies are increasingly impossible to enforce?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe: My Lords, the regime that we have introduced for copyright reflects a far-sighted report by Mr Hargreaves, many of whose provisions we have implemented. He was very aware of the balance between creators, rights holders and the consumer. The Copyright Hub is great, because it removes one of the excuses for piracy by making it easy and relatively cheap for potential users to seek and obtain permission to use works that are subject to copyright.
The Copyright Hub launched in 2013
and is a web portal dedicated to showing who owns rights to what in order to easily allow people to track down and credit people for their intellectual property.
Also bless Lord Howarth of Newport for basically hitting our concerns hammer and nail.
After Christmas I think I'll do some more searching into this, and read the fuckhug bill to check if the regulation really does what people fear it does
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