Thursday 19 March 2009
Dear Baroness Ludford, (Update: This was sent to all eleven of my
MEPs)
I am writing with reference to the European Parliament's vote on
copyright extension for sound recordings, due to take place on March
23rd.
As you know, this is a complex issue, but I shall try my best to keep
this short, I know you must be busy.
Amongst the justification for this particular extension to the term of
copyrights, is the idea that artists need more protection, particularly
towards the end of their lives when their income from royalties might
dry up as their copyrights expire.
This is misleading in the extreme. Under the current 50 year term, an
artist recording at age 25 will be protected until age 75, and any
artist who records throughout their lifetime will be protected until
many decades beyond their death.
There is no need whatsoever to extend the term in order to benefit or
incentivise artists.
In fact, as everyone knows, artists in practice almost never end up
owning the copyrights to their own works - the labels do. While artists
and labels are aligned in the desire to sell as many records as
possible, they are in direct opposition when it comes to dividing up the
proceeds. The majority of the income from sales goes to the labels,
because they have such an overwhelmingly dominant position of power in
the relationship. No label is reliant upon any individual artist, while
every artist is very much dependant on their label, to whom they are
tied by contract for many years. Strengthening copyright only
strengthens the position of the copyright owner, ie. the labels, at the
expense of what little leverage the artist may have. Extending the term
of copyright only enhances the labels' income, not the artists.
It is not the role of copyright to be a protectionist measure to support
labels who are having to adjust their business models in these times of
great change. The last thing we need to do is to construct laws which
chain Europe's creative industries to last-century modes of operation,
at precisely a time when the current tumult will reveal as yet undreamed
of exciting new ways of doing business.
As you know, copyright is intended to stimulate the creation of new
creative works, by enabling the artist to earn an income from their own
creations.
There exists significant evidence to suggest that stronger copyright may
actually inhibit the production of creative work, by allowing
monopoly-level profits to be reaped from ever smaller amounts of
creative output. The composer Verdi is notable for suddenly decreasing
his creative output when copyright laws over music were introduced in
18th century Italy - his personal correspondence indicates that he
simply had to work less because he was earning more from his earlier
compositions. (note that he retained copyright over his own work.)
Similarly, there is the very vital and oft-overlooked influence of the
creative environment which our society fosters. It could well be that
freedom to borrow and build upon inspiration from other artists is a
vital input to the engines of creativity, and to encourage fledgling
artists. By way of anecdotal evidence I say it would not be very
controversial to suggest that the last great English composer of the
Baroque period was Handel, who coincidentally died around the same year
copyright over music was introduced in England. After that, there is a
dearth of truly top-class composers from England, right up until the
20th century. Meanwhile Germany, too preocupied with invasions and
reforging of the nation to introduce copyright laws over music, went on
to produced greats like Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, in a succession of
creative gear-shifts which formed the romance and classical eras, all
done with no copyright over music. *1
I apologise if I have been unable to express my points very succinctly,
but I hope I have made given you some reasons to consider rejecting this
extension of the copyright term, or at least to consider assessing it in
the light of evidence over its theorised effects, rather than the
deliberately misleading suppositions put forward by those representing
the special interests who stand to directly benefit from the proposal at
the expense of artists and of the rest of society.
With all my gratitude and respect for the work you and your fellow MEPs
have done and will continue to do to resolve these issues,
Yours sincerely,
Jonathan Hartley
*1 See this February 2009 Harvard paper which notes:
"An attempt to determine the impact of legal changes on entry into
composing is inconclusive. The paper shows, however, that a golden age
of musical composition nevertheless occurred in nations that
lackedcopyright protection for musical works."
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1336802
The paper is summarised persuasively in an online news article here:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090308/1022324034.shtml