The Gowers Review of Intellectual Property
In December 2005, the Chancellor of the Exchequer asked Andrew Gowers, one-time Editor of the Financial Times, to conduct an independent review of the UK’s intellectual property framework in order to ascertain whether current legislation was fit for purpose. Published on 6 December 2006, the review expressed the opinion that current intellectual property law was in fact largely fit for purpose, and no large-scale changes were required. There were however several recommendations made for changes which might have significant implications for music publishers and their business. Some of these were very positive, such as recommendations as to how better to tackle music piracy, but others were widely regarded as problematic by rights owners. These included the following:
R8 – Recommendation for an exception to enable limited private copying
This recommendation advocated the creation of an exception to current copyright legislation, in order to enable private copying by consumers, primarily for format shifting. The problematic element of this for rights holders is the introduction of an exception, when there is the viable alternative of issuing a permissive licence for this. The MPA is therefore lobbying for this kind of solution to be implemented.
R11 – Recommendation for an exception for Transformative or Derivative Works
This recommendation advocated the creation of an exception to allow for the use of a work or part of a work as part of another, for instance as in the use of samples of a given song as part of another. This would mean that rights holders who did not wish their work to be used in this way would have to resort to using UK defamation laws to prevent this being done. The MPA does not feel that such an exception would be acceptable for rights owners, and is again lobbying to prevent the exception from being granted.
R12 – Recommendation for an exception to copyright for the purposes of caricature, parody or pastiche
The MPA feels that current legislation already allows for all types of caricature, parody and pastiche of a given work, except those which involve use of the actual work itself. Given that the practice of caricature and parody is alive and well in contemporary popular culture, the MPA does not agree with this recommendation. Again, we are lobbying against the introduction of an exception to the law in this case.
To download a copy of the review, please use the following link: http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/583/91/pbr06_gowers_report_755.pdf