The Musings of Harry

Huzzah! ORG reports that the Dept. of Culture, Media & Sport have rejected the HoC Culture Committee’s recommendation to extend copyright terms on sound recordings.

This was, of course, the recommendation of the Gowers Review, which the culture committee didn’t really address other than to say that “a number expressed disappointment in its findings”: by which they mean, the BPI didn’t like it. Well, honestly: did anyone think they would? They certainly don’t address its findings substantively — despite the fact that they make the opposite recommendation. Rather than making a case against it, they simply declare their own position, as if assuming that they can win the argument by fiat:

“Nonetheless, we believe that it is useful, in order to set in relief the discussions which follow, to record here our preferred perspective on copyright: a means by which people can own what they create and earn a living from their creativity”

This is unconvincing to say the least. Thankfully, the DCMS seems to agree. They robustly dismiss term extension, particularly drawing notice to the fact that additional royalties would not benefit most performers, as the majority have contractual relationships that require them to pay their royalties back to their record company. It would seem that, for now, term extension is dead:

Taking account of the findings of these reports, which carefully considered the impact on the economy as a whole, and without further substantive evidence to the contrary, it does not seem appropriate for the Government to press the Commission for action at this stage.

It is worth mentioning that both the culture committee and the DCMS have made encouraging noises about DRM in these reports. While they do (unfortunately) believe that DRM can be valuable, they also note that DRM systems should not be permitted to override exceptions to copyright. They also believe that now is not the time for regulation — that the technology is still young and needs more time to develop.

I disagree that DRM can be valuable, but I agree with the rest. Regulation at this stage could strengthen rather than weaken the copyright cartel’s hand: it would lend DRM a degree of legitimacy that it does not deserve, not to mention the fact that any regulations would almost certainly be awful: there are currently too many voices and not enough data.

Finally, I wrote to David Lepper, my MP, when ORG reported that he signed an Early Day Motion in favour of term extension. I tried, in as temperate a tone as possible, to rebut the argument made by the text of the EDM, which, among other things, had the temerity to state that a copyright term extension would “come as a much needed financial boost to many low paid musicians”. This particular statement was, of course, rather comprehensively rubbished by the DCMS report, as described above. For any interested party, I quote his response verbatim:

“Thank you for your letter of the 15^th May about Copyright and I note your views.”

Do you ever get the feeling you’re being ignored?

Next time your hear someone claim that movie takings are down because of piracy, and that piracy is costing the industry millions, remember this graph:

With takings like this, how could anyone possibly know whether or not they were losing money, let alone why? Wanna know if a movie will make money or not? Take up Voodoo. It’d be just as reliable.

Industry analyst Richard Doherty has announced that the protection on BluRay discs, BD+, won’t be broken for 10 years.

Presuming that BluRay movies will be playable on PCs, which I don’t think is unreasonable: when will these people learn? If your media format is playable using software on a general purpose computer, someone else will always be able to write some other software to do the same thing. It doesn’t matter how clever your discs are, what crypto you use, or how much money you pay to snake oil salesman that claim to be able to accomplish the impossible. If your software can do it, so can someone else’s.

DRM doesn’t work, costs a vast amount, makes your media less useful and hence less valuable and inconveniences your customers. It is the very definition of a bad idea. Wanting it not to suck doesn’t make it so. Wake up and smell the roses.