UK Culture Secretary Pushes Copyright Extension With Questionable Logic
from the can-I-get-paid-the-rest-of-my-life-please? dept
SteveD points us to the full text of a speech given by UK Cultural Secretary Andy Burnham, pushing for copyright extension on performance rights. The speech itself is interesting, in that Burnham at least pays some tribute to other ideas, even quoting John Perry Barlow on the nature of information. However, there are still plenty of troublesome (or downright incorrect) statements in the speech. Even though he kicks it off by saying that the government generally should stay out of the music business, he then goes on to mostly ignore that:But, the truth is, government intervention in the music business does not have a glorious history. To paraphrase one of our greats, mixing pop and politics is not a straightforward business and, indeed, can be a bit embarrassing for all concerned.You would think, having admitted that when the industry has been successful without intervention and admitting that when the gov't does get involved, things tend to get messed up, he'd have a pretty rock solid reason for saying it's time to change. But he doesn't. His focus seems to be on the fact that musicians need to get paid for every song listened to -- which is simply not true. That may be the way things worked in the past (actually, that's not true -- because most record labels never handed that money over to musicians, but...), but plenty of musicians have figured out other ways of getting paid. Burnham seems to ignore all that, and posits the fallacy that if musicians don't get paid from each use of a recorded song, they don't get paid at all.
The British music business has been a major success story with government at arm's length, or further - in something of a state of mutual distrust.
Over the second half of the last century the industry grew into one of real economic and cultural significance -- and its output for many defined us internationally -- yet without significant government intervention or political help.
But I'm going to make the case this morning that necessity means that the old order of things needs to change.
While he talks about new and innovative business models that can come about due to the internet, he then makes the mistake that all music industry business models must be based on copyright:
Copyright underpins the music business -- and all our creative industries -- and the right response when it's put under pressure is not to abandon a system as outdated, but to make it work better.And then he goes for the "moral" angle, which makes very little sense:
There is a moral case for performers benefiting from their work throughout their entire lifetime.There are numerous problems with this sentence. First of all, no one has ever said that performers don't benefit from their work throughout their lifetimes, even if they're not paid for every single use. But they should be the ones who set up how they benefit -- not the government. If I performed on a hit song in the 60s, there are plenty of ways to benefit: such as by convincing others to hire me by noting "Hey, look, I played the guitar on this number one hit from 1968..." or whatever.
But, Burnham is making a totally fallacious argument: that if you're not getting paid directly and repeatedly for the work, then there's some sort of moral code broken. On that, I think many people would disagree. Most folks get paid for their work once. They don't continue to get paid directly for it throughout their lifetimes. They're expected to keep working, and to save money so that eventually they can retire. Why should things be any different for performers?
And, the worst part is that Burnham leaves out the truly "moral" question of copyright extension: that it's taking content away from the public domain. The musicians who recorded performances fifty years ago entered into a deal with the public -- the public that Burnham is supposed to be representing, though he seems to think he represents the artists. They would perform the music and retain exclusive rights over it for 50 years. Then it goes into the public domain. To retroactively and unilaterally change that deal is completely unfair to everyone. It's saying that a deal that was entered into fifty years ago can be ignored and changed to benefit a single party against every other person. How is that possibly moral?
There's a lot more in the speech that is equally troubling, but it's just repeating the same old talking points. The speech also ignores the research that has shown that copyright extension won't actually give very much to the musicians, but will dump millions into the coffers of the big record labels. It's not surprising, because we've heard this before, but it's a speech that ignores reality and paints a fantasy picture of both what's happening in the industry and the entire purpose of copyright law.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: andy burnham, copyright, copyright extension, morality, uk
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Oh, wait, that's stupid.
Art isn't any more or less valuable than any other service, be it plumbing or secretarial work. A plumber who installs a toilet shouldn't get paid per flush, should he?
Or, to make it even more accurate, an engineer who creatively designs a toilet shouldn't get paid per flush because they were already paid for the design.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
It's not so much the concept of copyright, which most of us agree should be provided for a limited time, and extended for a limited time (actively, by the original author, not automatically for some "rights holder"), it's the execution of copyright that's a failure.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Greg
To whom are you speaking ?
I do not understand your point, please explain.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Aurthor of the Gowers review interviewd on a national news broadcast
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Aurthor of the Gowers review interviewd on a national news broadcast
From Gowers, "...very little money would actually end up in the hands of the musicians."
From the industry rep, "...we've been arguing from the moral perspective."
How is charging the public for "old" music and then not even passing it on to the musician a "moral perspective"? I think it's more an immoral perspective. They are thieves and liars and are accusing us of being worse. Pfft to them.
NB
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
if you count up all these costs of paying old creators then the sum of all these payments would closely resemble zero. but for some reason they see music assomething so special they need to be paid throguh the law in every possible way.
(just for the record I'm a amateur musician myself and totally love music)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
copyright term and logic
However, the argument against copyright protection itself is faulty in logic. All types of works under the IP umbrella differ from employment, which is usually following set routines, with some judgement input. Wages vary to take account of that input. The employee has no involvement in decision-making, nor worries about obtaining payment. [Exceptions will not alter this rule]
IP is entirely from the efforts of the copyright owner and, with rare exceptions, involve considerable effort before music, writing or invention are ready for market. In logic, just as any other entrepreneur will invest without certainty of sales, so does the IP owner.
The business entrepreneur is free to profit from his investment for ever, why so grudging to the IP owner? Now the issue of rip-offs by companies exploiting IP is another matter, and we may well have points of agreement there.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: copyright term and logic
Why?
The employee has no involvement in decision-making, nor worries about obtaining payment.
What does that have to do with... anything?
IP is entirely from the efforts of the copyright owner and, with rare exceptions, involve considerable effort before music, writing or invention are ready for market. In logic, just as any other entrepreneur will invest without certainty of sales, so does the IP owner.
How is that justification for IP? That seems like the opposite. Just as an entrepreneur needs to use a business model that works in the marketplace, so should the IP creator. Why should they get gov't protectionism?
The business entrepreneur is free to profit from his investment for ever, why so grudging to the IP owner?
That's incorrect. The business entrepreneur is free to profit IF HE CONTINUALLY innovates and continues to provide a product worth buying. That's not the case for the IP creator.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: copyright term and logic
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
What about writers?
Applying the same logic to writers, that means that the author of a book should get paid every time someone READS the book - not just when it's bought.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Copyright
"Most folks get paid for their work once. They don't continue to get paid directly for it throughout their lifetimes"
People in high risk enterprises (the original people at Intel, etc.) get stock options, and are "paid directly for it throughout their lifetimes"; so the statement is just wrong. However, I do agree with curbing the greed of the industry (and the politicians they finance). Overall, it IS wrong!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]