Publishers to Vote UKIP?

Copyright legislation is often strongly influenced by international law and treaties. UK rules have historically been driven from the Berne Treaty obligations (signed by most countries), as updated through the World Intellectual Property Organisation discussions, and EC legislation is increasingly important. The current EC copyright directive (the policy framework national governments are meant to enact) is eleven years old, and moves are being made to update it. A meeting is being held this Wednesday to set out the broad direction. 

NLA has recently been given a copy of the European Commissioners ‘orientation’ document on which this discussion will be based.  It describes the ‘value chain’ of publishing and using content: reading online newspapers are, it says,  one of the main uses of the internet. But content publishers are assumed to exist regardless of any change in their ability to protect investment. Journalists and photographers relying on newspapers for employment would want that to be true;- but they know, to their cost – it is not. Many UK newspapers are losing money and being forced to make journalists redundant.

The EC is instead focused on consumers’ desire to use the new toys that technology has given them – described in a ESRC report last week ‘its like having a cake but not being able to eat it’, and business users (the long arm of Google, probably) finding copyright an expensive nuisance. But there is no attempt at all to address the difficult question ‘why would you create, or pay someone to create content?’.   The ‘Facts and Figures’ annexed to the document includes this;-

• The print and publishing sector shrank by 7% between 2000 and 2010, and in the print sector, advertising revenues are shrinking 1% annually.

The analysis ignores the facts, and their implications. It’s natural to want your cake and eat it. The EC has been here before.  Ask the Greeks.

Andrew Hughes

Commercial Director, NLA