UK review of copyright law for new media

[paola]

bbc article
Full report just released - the most relevant part for digital media sees to be chapter 5.
If "format shift" is going to be allowed, though, I presume it still won't legalise DRM removal, even if for personal use.

[mr ploppy]

What is interesting is that the BPI are now against the inclusion of a fair use clause, whereas when there was no prospect of one being introduced they stated they would be in favour of such a clause.

http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?storycode=1045254
"BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor said, “Professor Hargreaves has sensibly rejected Google's flawed case for a significant weakening of UK copyright."

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

What is interesting is that the BPI are now against the inclusion of a fair use clause, whereas when there was no prospect of one being introduced they stated they would be in favour of such a clause.

Do you have a reference for that? I remember them saying some years ago that they wouldn't prosecute anyone for format-shifting, but I'd not heard them support fair use.

Of course, the whole thing could be simply ignored, like the Gowers Review was a few years ago.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by avantman42

Do you have a reference for that?

Not any more, it was in one of the old piracy threads. Harry T brought it up when we were "discussing" the digital economy act.

Fair use was supposed to have gone into the DEA, but with so little time to discuss it they probably forgot. Or they might have thought it was something to do with music played at fairground rides.

[HarryT]

This is good news; this review has been awaited for a long time, and appears to have widespread support.

[peter09]

Interesting that it does not address the issues that consumers have with these laws. For instance the growth in Licensing a product rather than owning one - with the restriction in consumer rights that it entails - and for ebooks the restrictions on usage (including transfer between devices due to normal upgrades etc).

As an aside:

I have often wondered how a musician (and his descendants?) can earn money for many years`from 'one performance' issued on a CD - compare this to a musician in say the 18th century, and compare to the rest of us, whose creative work, once done and money earned, has gone.

Piracy - well I understand the argument, but, in some cases, have little sympathy.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by peter09

I have often wondered how a musician (and his descendants?) can earn money for many years`from 'one performance' issued on a CD - compare this to a musician in say the 18th century, and compare to the rest of us, whose creative work, once done and money earned, has gone.

That is interesting, All work is creative. But we can't really imagine ebooks that delete themselves after reading though and paintings that disintegrate after viewing. What we can imagine is a nice implementation of the donation button.

[mjhudston]

For me its The format shifting changes, that really interests me, as I would like all my content available in one place, IE iTunes.

With the current restrictions, this has limited the development of software to make this happen easily.

[peter09]

I have often wondered how a musician (and his descendants?) can earn money for many years`from 'one performance' issued on a CD - compare this to a musician in say the 18th century, and compare to the rest of us, whose creative work, once done and money earned, has gone

Yes - I guess I meant when I said 'has gone' is that we earn nothing more from it. Another example of this would be a soccer (or football) player. Yes they earn far too much money entertaining us but ... their worth and wage is dependent on todays performance on the pitch, they cannot refer back to games gone by for earnings and status.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by peter09

As an aside:

I have often wondered how a musician (and his descendants?) can earn money for many years`from 'one performance' issued on a CD - compare this to a musician in say the 18th century, and compare to the rest of us, whose creative work, once done and money earned, has gone.

Intellectual property is *property*. A musician's kids can continue to earn money from his CD in the same way that landlord's kids can continue to earn money from a rental house their dad bought and rented out, or the way a businessperson's kids can continue to earn money from the family business, or in the way a farmers kids can continue to earn money by farming the land they inherited, or the way anyone's kids can continue to earn money from stocks they might have inherited.

Property is different from work for hire. You can't leave your job to your kids, but you can leave them your property. Which may (or may not) be income producing.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by peter09

Interesting that it does not address the issues that consumers have with these laws. For instance the growth in Licensing a product rather than owning one - with the restriction in consumer rights that it entails - and for ebooks the restrictions on usage (including transfer between devices due to normal upgrades etc).

That's because this was a review of copyright law, and licensing has nothing to do with copyright.

I have often wondered how a musician (and his descendants?) can earn money for many years`from 'one performance' issued on a CD - compare this to a musician in say the 18th century, and compare to the rest of us, whose creative work, once done and money earned, has gone.

What do you mean by "the rest of us"? You are as able as anyone else to write a book, a piece of software, or a musical composition, and earn royalties from it. It's not "them and us"; it's something that's available to everyone.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by peter09

Yes - I guess I meant when I said 'has gone' is that we earn nothing more from it. Another example of this would be a soccer (or football) player. Yes they earn far too much money entertaining us but ... their worth and wage is dependent on todays performance on the pitch, they cannot refer back to games gone by for earnings and status.

That's because they work for hire. The football club that owns them can and does make money from old games that happened in the past.