The duly noted® blog

Copyright on UK music recordings – why no extension?

You may have already heard the UK’s Labour government’s recent review – and ultimate refusal – to grant an extension to the copyright life of sound recordings has not gone down well in the music industry; among recording artists and the labels producing and distributing their work alike.  (See the BBC News web article: “No copyright extension for songs”) 

Now I read on the BBC News website the other day that another recording artist has entered the fray about the dispute over extending the UK’s music recording copyright lifespan – the difference being this one is a MP. 

Ex-Runrig keyboardist Pete Wishart, now Scottish National Party MP for Perth and North Perthshire, is – by virtue of being in his current job – reflecting the concerns of recording artists unlucky enough not be the Beatles, BeeGees, or Cliff Richard.  And the concern he reflects will not just be by the voice he adds to the debate in Parliament, it’s the fact of his own experience, being this; a vast majority of recording artists enjoy only a brief spell in the music industry, likely never to achieve enduring fame, and who for whatever reason move on.  Regardless though, royalties earned from their performances are a vital income stream down the years, however small. 

But under current copyright law that income stream is soon to stop flowing for recording artists reaching their twilight years, whose first records were cut in the late 1950s and early ‘60s.   

Though the protests of the older rich and (still) famous artists, aggrieved at the impending loss of revenue, has received some perhaps understandable scorn, Pete Wishart’s pointing behind the limelight to their less successful and supporting compatriots’ plight, many to whom these royalties are an important extra income, as well his highlighting the potential compromising effect it will have on the UK’s creative sector, has both my interest and sympathy. 

After all, in this day and age when there is no longer such a thing as a “job for life”, with people living longer, and when a pension crisis has already risen well over the horizon and looms with no money to cover the shortfall, it appears absurd the government isn’t leaping on an opportunity to keep older artists in coin without having to pay for it themselves…while earning a little more tax revenue from it at the same time. 

The reason this is all such a headache for the recording artist is because, when it comes to duration of copyright under law, they are the poor IP relation.  At the time when some years back I was doing my initial researches into the what, whys and wherefores of UK copyright law, it struck me as odd the various categories of created works that could be classified as copyrightable seemed to have such varied life spans.  Copyright on novels and fiction works survived seventy years after the author’s death; movies and broadcast programmes fifty years after the death of the last co-author (producer/director).  Even composers had seventy years after their demise for their families to rake it in from their jottings along the scales.  But, live or die, recording artists get fifty years.  Period. 

The British Phonographic Industry had been campaigning for an extension up to 95 years, thereby bringing it into alignment with US law.  No surprise then when Gordon Brown commissioned Andrew Gowers, former editor of the Financial Times, to produce the report, which – delivered before the end of last year – recommended that an extension to the current fifty year copyright lifespan should not occur, this caused an understandable upset. 

It staggers the imagination to think our own government appears unwilling to help one of our best cultural exports.  We have the foremost music business in Europe.  Wishart’s arguments aside, surely an extension of copyright of songs will also allow rights holders a longer timeframe in which to recoup more revenue to offset their losses through music piracy – perhaps now more pervasive and damaging than ever before (£77M a year for CD counterfeits alone according to the BPI). 

Sadly however this is not the first time the hobbling of a successful home grown industry has been meted out by the current Chancellor.  Brown pulled the rug from under the film industry in 2004 by precipitously closing loopholes in film industry tax incentives for UK co-productions.  The logic wasn’t the problem that time – it was the execution; at a stroke killing stone dead a number of movies either prepping for or in production at the time, and terminating the employment of hundreds of people and contracts with facilities houses.  It took six months for the industry to recover, and was the major contributor to film production dropping 40% that year.  Nice one, future PM.  

This begs the questions; is Labour in its heart truly pro-arts, and does it think seriously about the consequences of its actions?   

At the same time, this debate has made me wonder whether there’s not an argument for a rationalisation of copyright life; the creation of a single, umbrella life-span, thereby creating a level playing field, regardless from which creative category your IP came.  Then if you extend or reduce, you are doing so to all works in all areas.  This idea I’m sure is provocative; advocates for each creative area will likely have arguments why their copyright should either have the life it does, or in all probability why it should be extended further.  All no doubt would want it to match the copyright category with the maximum term already legislated. 

Anyway for now it seems we have to lump it with the messy system we have. 

In the meantime a 5,000 strong petition by musicians and recording artists within the UK industry has been signed, expressing concern over Gowers’ review.  Let’s see if that and Pete Wishart’s contribution to the debate make any difference.  Otherwise the lobbyists for an extension will have to take their case to Europe. 

For any recording artists reading, the moral of this tale is; if you wish to earn a living in the music business, don’t just invest your energies honing your performance craft – think of your pension and your families… and push into song writing too. 

© 2007 Julian Boote  All rights reserved.

www.dulynoted.co.uk

DISCLAIMER NOTICE

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This article may contain the personal views of its author which are not the views of the duly noted^® Ltd. unless specifically stated.

I am a film piracy informer

Just before Christmas, I informed on a movie pirate. 

That’s a dramatic opening line, isn’t it?  It smacks of Ray Liotta’s opening narration from Goodfellas; “As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster.”  Nice line. 

I however am not a gangster, and I’ve never wanted to be. 

I may well have reported one though. 

Now I’ve seen movie pirates before over the years – on street corners or outside the doors of an empty shop, their wares laid out on the pavement before them; flat plastic wallets with a colour print, maybe a photocopy of the movie poster if it’s just out in cinemas, or the DVD cover if older, while inside is the unadorned shiny CD ROM holding the duped movie.  Or someone’s DVCam home movie of the movie.  These people have done a roaring trade down Oxford Street, Holloway Road, even outside my local superstore; hawking their counterfeit DVDs and CDs, blatant in their law-breaking. 

But I’d never reported it before.  What prompted me this time, what shocked me to action was a first hand encounter with a pirate entering a legitimate business, and hawking their illegal wares to one of the staff, in full view and without a care in the world. 

I was in a north London estate agent on the 16th December 2006 with my girlfriend, who was looking to buy a property.  I was along for the ride.  It was whilst she was being shown the available properties by one of the agents that I spied a woman enter the shop.  She was far eastern in appearance, and in her twenties I guess, but that wasn’t what sparked my interest in her or her approach and welcome by the older agent (a man) at the other desk, who was free at the time and appeared to know her.  No, my radar went into overdrive only when this woman produced a number of familiar-looking plastic wallets from a carrier bag she held.  Absorbed in the property opportunities presented her, my girlfriend was too occupied to see what I continued to observe (as unobtrusively as I could) as the woman proceeded to show the wallets to the agent.  Now to be honest, I couldn’t see them clearly, as I was trying not to appear nosey, but they appeared to be just the same kind of wallets containing the illegally copied movies I’ve seen sold before, like I’ve said, on street corners in the city.   

The agent asked the woman if the quality was good and she nodded.  He bought at least two of them with cash, and the woman left. 

Now I must stress the estate agents as a business was not selling pirated goods – though one of its staff certainly appeared to be purchasing it.  What staggered my imagination was the confidence and easy air the seller displayed as she came into their office, which, judging by the agent’s reaction to her, implies she’d done many times before.  Afterwards it occurred to me if one estate agent lets her ply her trade on their premises, how many more businesses in the area allow her illegal activities through their doors and to carry on under their owners’ noses – or perhaps even with their knowledge? 

I decided enough was enough. 

So, in the last week before Christmas, I made contact with the Federation of Copyright Theft (FACT), the film industry’s representative trade body that is committed to protecting its interests in the fight against pirate film DVDs and downloads, and I reported what I’d witnessed.  Now I don’t know if what I shared is enough for them to take action or even investigate further, but I’m content that, however little it is, I’ve at least  done something, I’ve at least made a stand. 

“You’re taking it a little personally aren’t you?” you may be asking.  “What’s your beef?”  My beef?  The answer’s simple really. 

One of my own movies was pirated. 

Back in 2000, before setting up duly noted^® I ran my own film production company, and the previous year clinched distribution of the first feature film I’d produced, The Killing Zone.  One night I was having a drink with friends, and one of them introduced me to a mate of theirs.  During the course of our conversation he learned I was a filmmaker, and told me he’d seen the Zone and complimented me on it.  Only then did he reveal he’d watched it by downloading it illegally from a file-sharing site on the web.  At the time my fledgling film company hadn’t begun earning revenue from this film, so we were living a hand-to-mouth at best.  So for me to suddenly discover my movie was free to download from somewhere on the web – and losing my company money – was of great concern to say the least.  More accurately I was floored.   

I asked this infringer for the name of that site.  He wouldn’t tell me.  I patiently tried to explain how we were a small company; it was a low budget film, our first, so we hadn’t the resources to take a financial hit of revenue loss through this illegal copying that the big studios could.  The little shit was unmoved and wouldn’t budge.  Leaving, he wished me well and said he’d recommend my movie to his friends.  Hell, I thought, the bastard would probably hand them the file.  

I was powerless to do anything.  Short of throttling him there and then for the info, and having the police called in, what else could I do?  I didn’t know about FACT then, let alone whether I could report the incident to them.  Perhaps I should have wrapped my hands round the infringer’s throat after all, even though I would have ruined my friend’s get-together.  My only consolation at the time was that any loss in revenue to me was compensated for by the phone bill the arsehole would have had to clock up downloading the movie.

I think you see now where I’m coming from. 

However, that was six years ago.  The dial-up age is over, broadband is here, and with it, organised piracy.  A blockbuster movie not yet released here can be taped on a DV camera in a fleapit cinema in China, digitised, piped hot through the web and hawked down Oxford Street within a day. 

Don’t believe me?  Criminal gangs are currently targeting intellectual property piracy in a way never before seen; it has become a lucrative black market.  The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) estimates organised crime-run commercial music piracy is growing ten times faster than legitimate music businesses. 

Across the UK as a whole, the picture forming of IP theft is startling.  In its report, “The Cost of Counterfeiting”, the Alliance Against IP Theft (a group of organisations representing over 500 of Europe’s best known brands and creative and retail businesses lobbing for better protection against IP crime) highlights a 2005 survey by its members, and the resulting report estimated that in 2004 the black market in IP piracy and fake goods resulted in a loss to the Exchequer of £2 billion in revenue.  Even more important was the revenue loss to the UK industries affected by such IP infringement; valued at £9.2 billion.  The survey broke the losses down into sectors: 

Music:                                         £0.077 Bn

Leisure software:                          £0.540 Bn

Manufacturing:                              £8.000 Bn

Cinema & home entertainment:      £0.600 Bn 

Total Losses:                               £9.217 Bn 

The AAIPT admits these figures are an estimate, given the difficulties calculating revenue from clandestine criminal activities.  Nonetheless the figure is sobering; the survey put it into context by citing credit card fraud in 2004 amounted to just £0.5 billion! 

Now imagine what the losses to these industries were in 2006! 

“These figures are all very well,” you might say, “but it’s only affecting established industry businesses, the Foxes, MGMs, Paramounts, the EMIs etc.”  No it isn’t.  Remember my story.  It’s affecting creatives just like it did me every day; small timers unconnected to the majors whose losses go unrecorded, with neither the clout nor the resources to take the kind of action against the criminals that the big boys can. 

But what you can do – what we can all do – is at least report what you see.  You never know what good it will do.  It could even help bring down an organised piracy ring. 

That’s why if I see my film pirate again, I’ll be reporting her again, as well as any other piracy I witness.  For me at least I won’t be standing by any more, I won’t feel powerless like I did back in that bar in 2000. 

So I urge you, if you’re a filmmaker or muso, don’t think it won’t happen to you.  Chances are it already is.  And if you’re worried about your name being revealed – don’t.  Reporting piracy can be done anonymously.   

So don’t look the other way any more.  TAKE ACTION! 

Report FILM piracy: complete a Federation of Copyright Theft (FACT) Piracy Report Form or call their hotline on 0845 603 4567 

Report MUSIC piracy: email details to the British Phonographic Industry at antipiracy@bpi.co.uk or call them on 020 7803 1300  Remember – it could be your work they’re stealing! 

© 2007 Julian Boote  All rights reserved.

www.dulynoted.co.uk

DISCLAIMER NOTICE

—————————————————————————————————————————

This article may contain the personal views of its author which are not the views of the duly noted^® Ltd. unless specifically stated.

dn signs off for 2006

Well, here we are…almost the end of 2006. As well as being the traditional time of year for excess…and the stress over buying and giving of presents…the bills that go with them, and the pondering over whether you really, really will begin that diet in the New Year, Christmas is also the time for reflection. I don’t mean the usual cliché about the meaning of season (though I guess it wouldn’t do us any harm to give pause for that too). What I’m thinking is this is the time for looking back; reviewing and reflecting upon the past twelve months.

So have you taken stock yet? How did you do this year? Excellently, we hope. And we here at duly noted^®? Well, looking over the past twelve months, I can say that we’ve certainly made big strides on our journey towards helping IP owners with their rights. And those steps haven’t necessarily been easy ones either, involving tough choices – more than a few of them being a little scary, truth to tell. In the end though, we followed Virgin boss Richard Branson’s mantra and said, “Screw it, let’s do it”. After all, it hasn’t seemed to have done him much harm!

Now, almost twelve months after January 1st, here we are; we’ve re-launched our site, offering new services (duly formed company formations) and expanded others (duly registered’s bundles registrations, and duly saved with massively increased data storage). Yes, more registrations, more storage capacity – and at a lower price! That’s right, we even lowered our charges. (That got one or two of the team sweating during the summer, I can tell you!) If you didn’t see any of our other improvements we hope you noticed that!

Yes, sir; a lot of hard work, but producing great benefits for you, our clients.

As I said though, we’ve made strides, but the journey’s still ongoing; we’ve a long way to go yet towards helping IP owners with their rights.  What we’re doing now isn’t all we want to do, not by a long chalk. It’s our hope that with this coming year, we’ll be able to implement more offerings that can help you learn how best to protect and promote your work.

May you also achieve your aims in the next twelve months.

As ever, wishing you success and a Merry Christmas. 

Julian Boote

And the rest of the duly noted^® team

You can now upload 100Mb! Plus…

Dear Friends

We’re pleased to announce two final gifts for this year to our clients at duly noted®.

1. Increased upload capacity

As of now, whether you are registering your copyrighted work with us, or uploading it to us as part of our off-site back-up service, you can upload files of up to 100Mb in size – and at no extra cost!

Now you really don’t have to worry whether your music, movies, artwork or website is too big to be accepted by our systems!

Y’know, we laugh when we look back eighteen months to when our upload limit was a scant 10Mb! I do wonder though… when we look back eighteen months from now, how much more will we have increased the upload limit for you? We’ll probably be laughing then, too!

2. Standardised low pricing

We’ve also levelled out the rates for our registrations; so now, whether you’re registering just one work or a truckload, the price per registration will be just £4.97 including VAT sales tax. (But if you have the truckload, taking a look at our bundles packages might be wise!)

We hope this contributes to your Christmas cheer! Wishing you success

The duly noted® team

www.dulynoted.co.uk