- Copyright – licensing of public performances
(a) Have you encountered problems with the system of licensing and paying royalties to collecting societies for public performance of music and/or sound recordings?
(b) Could the system be clarified or simplified, and if so how do you see this working?
Gowers Review of Intellectual PropertyAt the Enterprise Conference on 2 December 2005, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that, as part of the Pre-Budget Report 2005 package, he was asking Andrew Gowers to lead an Independent Review to examine the UK's intellectual property framework. The Open Rights Group has been formally invited to participate. We are currently drafting our submission and wish to include your thoughts and opinions. We have reproduced the Call for Evidence below and invite you to contribute - just hit 'respond' next to the paragraph you wish to comment on. Many of the questions asked by Andrew Gowers in this review are very focused, but you should feel free to comment on the issues and the wider implications rather than feel obliged to provide specific answers. If you want to talk about issues not raised by this call for evidence, please do - just leave your comments on the Introduction. |
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March 16th, 2006 at 11:22
The current system for licensing copyright music for reproduction or performance is a nightmare and causes us real issues. We take IP seriously and are keen to make fair payments for the use of music and recordings but the current regime makes this exceptionally difficult and limits our ability to develop new and exciting learning activities.
There are three fundamental issues:
1. Multiple organisations and avenues to licence rights, often with conflicting demands, prices and access. To give one example, an attempt to produce a CD of a school concert (with profits to charity) foundered after months of work because one of the rights holders with-held permission. There needs to be:
a. An assumption in favour of use of IP by others in return for fair reward (like patents) and
b. A simple “one-stop shop” which would allow organisations to licence use quickly and easily
c. A clear, unambiguous and supportive definition of “fair use” that encourages free or low-cost use of IP where this is of direct public benefit and prevents IP holders from imposing unfair or unrealistic restrictions.
2. The costs of licences can be completely unreasonable and often take little notice of the purpose and profit involved in the use. We have been trying to launch an online “school radio station” which would involve some use of commercially published music. PPL has (after long delay) offered a licence that would cost us around £500 per year – which we regard as costly but not completely unreasonable. MCPS/PRS will not come below approx. £2,500 per year which makes the project impossible. All these licence fees represent new income for licence holders. In comparison, similar activities (e.g. a hospital radio station) are completely free from copyright licence fees.
3. The remedies for unfair or unreasonable practices by copyright holders (or more often their agencies) are cumbersome, extraordinarily expensive and very slow (e.g. copyright tribunal) – completely irrelevant to an organisation like mine who, in practice, have no support or remedy at all when copyright holders limit or damage my organisation’s activities. We need something like a “copyright ombudsman”.