[A2k] Financial Times editorial: Do not enclose the cultural commons

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

Do not enclose the cultural commons

Published: April 19 2009 19:26 | Last updated: April 19 2009 19:26

The European parliament will next week consider a proposal by the
European Commission to extend copyright for performers and producers
of recorded music to 95 years from the current 50. Charlie McCreevy,
the commissioner in charge, says the extension will help vulnerable
ageing performers and promote the cultivation of new artists. It will
do neither; this disgraceful proposal only grants the music industry
even more power over the already distorted market. The parliament must
vote it down.

Copyright is an act of force: it is the means by which states forcibly
establish artificial monopolies in cultural works. There are two
arguments why governments can legitimately do this. The first is to
ensure efficient incentives for cultural production. The second is to
ensure that artists get a fair reward for their contribution to our
culture=92s enrichment. In the absence of copyright, the ease with which
cultural works can be reproduced may leave creators with neither
efficient incentives nor fair rewards.

But neither consideration justifies extension of copyright beyond the
current 50 years. If anything, copyright terms are currently too long.

Anyone acquainted with human creativity knows that most artistic work
worth having springs not from the expectation of lengthy royalty
streams but from the intrinsic motivation to create. Artistic
production is simply something humans do: it pervades history,
copyright protection or not. Dave Rowntree, drummer with Blur and The
Ailerons, put it succinctly to the 2006 Gowers Review on intellectual
property in the UK. The review, which was written by a former FT
editor and opposed extension, quotes him as saying: =93I have never
heard of a single one [band] deciding not to record a song because it
will fall out of copyright in =91only=92 50 years. The idea is laughable.=
=94
Quite so.

Even more laughable is Mr McCreevy=92s tear-dripping depiction of
artists =93at the most vulnerable period of their lives=94 losing income
from recordings they did in the 1960s. By the commissioner=92s own
admission, most revenues accrue to a few =93superstars=94 =96 and of course
producers. It is therefore the likes of Sir Cliff Richard and EMI who
stand to benefit the most from an extension. (Besides, reduced income
at retirement is hardly unique to musicians; one wonders why their
predicament is specially worrisome.)

This is not to deny that many artists benefit too little from their
work. The solution is not to indulge production companies more, but to
shift power from them to artists and performers.

Copyright extension is, in the main, just the well-known strategy of
powerful companies: profit-grabbing through lobbying for state
protection. That is bad enough. Worse is the chilling effect it can
have on creativity: the industry is already on a legal crusade against
the sampling of copyrighted material into new original work. This is
like the Grimm brothers=92 descendants suing Disney for using their
fairy tales.

The cultural industries are over-protected. If cultural works were
less greedily hoarded, consumers would enjoy more variety =96 and
artists would create more freely.

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Thiru Balasubramaniam
Geneva Representative
Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
thiru@keionline.org


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