Guest Post: Gareth Hughes on copyright
A guest post by Greens MP Gareth Hughes:
London School of Economics on copyright.
A new report out by the London School of Economics busts some of the myths around copyright infringement and the laws passed that try to punish online file-sharing.
The London School of Economics Media Policy Project has published a report entitled “Copyright & Creation: A Case for Promoting Inclusive Online Sharing”, which argues ‘The creative industries are innovating to adapt to a changing digital culture and evidence does not support claims about overall revenue reduction due to individual copyright infringement,’ and that a punitive approach risks ‘incentives for innovation and growth will be weakened.’
It’s a timely report that challenges the claims the music industry is at mortal peril from online file-sharers and that graduated response regimes like our Copyright (Infringing File-Sharing) Amendment Act, or more popularly known as the ‘Skynet Law’ are the best way forward to address the challenge of copyright infringement.
I am a Spotify premium subscriber and I just love being able to access a lot of the world’s music conveniently, portably and legally for a small monthly charge. It is one example where the music industry is innovating and adapting to the digital world profitably. The report notes in 2013, for the first time UK revenues for online music was higher than for CDs and vinyl combined as part of overall revenue growth. The report recommends a review of the UKs stalled Skynet-style law, the Digital Economy Act and that ‘a copyright enforcement model that is out of touch with today’s online culture will only supress innovation and dampen growth.’
Another recent paper, this one published from Australia’s Monash University on copyright enforcement also found graduated response or three-strike laws internationally, including New Zealand’s own ‘Skynet Law’ were not working. In New Zealand’s case the report found the law was hardly acting as an effective deterrent to reduce online copyright infringement and people were simply switching from Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file-sharing sites to other methods such as cyber-lockers to obtain content
The New Zealand Government unfortunately has decided to delay the anticipated copyright review and with more reports published challenging the effectiveness of graduated response regimes to copyright infringement as seen in our Skynet Law it’s time the Government reopened the copyright debate and let evidence set policy. I would much rather the Government put their energy into promoting legal content over punitive laws that stifle innovation and plainly don’t work.
The London School of Economics report is a very good read at debunking the myth of revenues dropping.
I wouldn’t rush to judgement on how the NZ law is working. The level of fines have been reasonably modest, and what I will be interested in is how many infringement notices in total got issued over a year, how many went to a second and a third strike.