UK Copyright Extension in Exchange for Censorship?

Awel writes "The UK opposition leader, David Cameron, says in a speech to the British Phonographic Industry that his party would work to extend the copyright term to 70 years and crack down on piracy. But in return, labels would have to agree to bear more 'social responsibility', which appears to translate into avoiding lyrics that glorify 'an anti-learning culture, truancy, knifes, violence, guns, misogyny'. He doesn't spell out how this would be achieved in practice. This follows the publication in December of a UK government report recommending that the standard copyright term in Europe remain at 50 years (and not be raised to 70 or 95 years)."

Comments

What a deal.

[Rob T Firefly]

So Cameron is basically promising to do his part to make speech less free, so long as the labels promise to do their part to make speech less free? Score.

Re:What a deal.

[niceone]

So Cameron is basically promising to do his part to make speech less free, so long as the labels promise to do their part to make speech less free? Score.

Yeah, not free (as in speech) in exchange for not free (as in beer). Excellent.

Dangers to freedom...

[kebes]

To all the people who doubt the social relevance of the "copyright reformist" debate... here is a perfect example of why we should be concerned. Not only is there yet another push for copyright extension, but this extension is being used to bargain for government censorship too.

The irony, of course, is that one of the main problems with effectively-perpetual copyright is the many restrictions it places on open commentary and free speech. Perpetual and rigidly-enforced copyrights essentially produce a chilling effect in the domain of free public discussion. Since copyright is a government-granted monopoly, it is hard to not label this as censorship.

So we get a double-dose of censorship: copyright extensions limit our ability to freely discuss and produce derivative art of the culture we are a part of... and these same extensions are used as a lever to enforce a government-mandated version of decency. In my mind this seriously calls into question the notion that copyrights are there as a service to society, encouraging distribution of artwork to the people... or have we given up on that interpretation of copyright entirely?

Knifes?

[Pedrito]

which appears to translate into avoiding lyrics that glorify 'an anti-learning culture, truancy, knifes, violence, guns, misogyny'.

I have only one question: What are knifes and why is someone glorifying them?

Re:Historic precedent

[EvilMonkeySlayer]

It is not the government, it's the party that wants to be in government but isn't.
The conservatives have always been big businesses bitches and this simply reiterates it.
This is why any self respecting geek should avoid voting conservative (think of them as the republicans, only slightly less insane).. hell, it's pretty hard to tell the conservatives and labour apart nowadays. Lib Dems or the Greens are probably the best parties if you want a slightly (ever so slightly, lets face facts pretty much all parties suck) better government.

If it works that way...

[Simply Curious]

Can it go the other way too? Can they lower the copyright term in exchange for reducing censorship?

So many mistakes...

[kebes]

The entire text of this speech makes me sick. It is full of lies and unsubstantiated claims. Here's a random assortment:

And at a time of technological revolution, you have adapted to changes in consumer behaviour with great ingenuity, launching online and mobile services.

(Emphasis mine.) Ha! That's a laughable analysis of an industry desperately trying to maintain the status quo.

First, how do we prevent the massive fraud that is carried out against your industry every day through copyright theft.

I know it's been said a million times on Slashdot, but: calling copyright infringement "theft" is imprecise (and legally at least incorrect) and is an intentional attempt to bias the debate.

And second, how do we protect your investments in the long-term by looking at the issue of copyright extension in the digital age.

"Copyright extension in the digital age." The irony! Because we live in a world where information can be transmitted very quickly, and fads come and go much more quickly, and everything is being sped up... clearly the solution is to provide temporal extensions to all present laws! ~sarcasm~

Very few people would go into a shop, lift a CD from the shelves and just walk out with it. But for some reason, many are happy to buy pirate CDs or illegally download music.

This is a classic fallacy. Rather than dwell on the obvious differences between theft of physical property and unauthorized duplication of data, I ask a question: If the people of your country are obviously treating the two activities very differently (both in practical and moral terms), shouldn't you instead search out the root cause of those differences? Perhaps the people unconsciously realize that there is a fundamental difference!

This alone has cost the music industry as much as £1.1 billion in lost retail sales since 2004.

Prove it.

We wouldn't tolerate fraud on such a massive scale in any other industry... so why is there such little will on the part of government, businesses and individuals to confront it in the music industry?

Again, maybe you should use this as a clue to the fact that those figures of "lost sales" may not be realistic? Maybe you should search out the reasons why your citizens bear very little sympathy for this industry...

Copyright matters because it is the way artists are rewarded and businesses makes its money and invests in the future. So copyright theft has to be treated like other theft.

Correction: "Copyright matters because it is one way artists can be rewarded and business may make money." (The second sentence is a non sequitur.)

If you cannot get protection from illegal activity, where is the incentive to continue innovating?

That's a very good question... and since you evidently don't know the answer, you should spend time talking to the millions of artists worldwide who release their material under a creative commons license (or implicitly allow others to access their work by posting it online freely, e.g. YouTube), and the huge community of free software coders. (Note: I agree that free software coders benefit from the legal framework of the GPL, and others benefit from the legal framework of the CC licenses... but not in the way that he is implying.)

This only covers the first 1/4 of the speech. Again, I'm disgusted by the skewed view of the entire debate that is being presented. This results from either paying little to no attention to what is going on, or an intentional misrepresentation in order to garner the favor of a particular industry. In either case, it's not a good place from which to start setting social policy.

Re:Historic precedent

[teh_chrizzle]

So what you're really saying is, "Government is returning to its roots" and that is correct.

government censorship and copyright go hand in hand.

copyright originally started as a government sponsored censorship program as the excerpt from this article states:

The first copyright law was a 1556 censorship statute in England. It granted the Company of Stationers, a London guild, exclusive rights to own and run printing presses. Company members registered books under their own name, not the author's name, and these registrations could be transferred or sold only to other Company members. In exchange for their government-granted monopoly on the book trade, the Stationers aided the government's censors, by controlling what was printed, and by searching out illegal presses and books -- they even had the right to burn unauthorized books and destroy presses. They were, in effect, a private, for-profit information police force.

so, in the UK, the government granting copyright terms in order to censor the works is a return to the roots of copyright.

How many things are wrong with this idea?

[Odiumjunkie]

> work to extend the copyright term to 70 years and crack down on piracy

Right... because the first thing to do in the fight against piracy is to broaden the definition of piracy to include twenty years worth of extra music. In other news, Cameron announced that as the first step in a crackdown on murder, the definition of "murder" will been expanded to include drunk-driving. He said that government claims that this would increase reported cases of murder by 12000% as "exagerated".

> He argued that extending the term would give an "incentive to the music industry to digitise both older and niche repertoire which
> more people can enjoy at no extra cost".

Right... so, extending the copyright term to include works which are currently in the public domain, and thus free and legal to use for any purpose will help people enjoy these works at "no extra cost"? In other news, as part of a campaign to try and get kids to exercise more, Cameron announced plans to put all public playparks into the hands of private companies that will charge for their use.

> Mr Cameron said: "Most people think these are all multimillionaires living in some penthouse flat. The reality is that many of
> these are low-earning session musicians who will be losing a vital pension."...

> ...Sir Cliff Richard, The Who and Sir Paul McCartney backed the campaign to extend the 50-year term

...enough said

Profit for censorship

[wlvdc]

Economic benefits in return for social responsibility. Read: more profit if you apply (self-)censorship to ensure the restoration of Victorian values. The next step will be ofcourse to ban anything that is critical, obscene, rebellious or hurtful to the feelings of the majority. I can recall at least two other regimes from the last century that offered benefits to individuals, companies and organisations, when they would apply censorship and spy on family, friends, neighbours and employees. This is all very much in-line with recent developments in the UK. Oher examples are: many in the UK think, supported by populist politicians, press and media, that there are terrorists and child molestors on every street corner (ofcourse all non-British). Consequently, there are more and more calls to ditch human rights legislation and to cut freedom of speech, all in the name of fighting terrorism and anti-social behaviour. People get political positions through cash donations (cash for honours). Police kill innocent people and no one gets charged. Two-year old in a pram cannot enter a supermarket wearing a hoodie. Fourteen-year old girl gets arrested for chalking love signs and butterflies on a pavement. Father gets arrested for making pictures of his son playing football, not having a license. All social-economic problems here are caused by artists, scientists, immigrants, teenagers or the European Union, so they should and will be punished. The true culprits, politicians, laywers, the popular media and greedy business people walk free and get rewarded for their opportunism.