Rich Fiscus
25 Jul 2007 8:03
Ministers yesterday issued a response to recommendations made by the Parliamentary culture'n'media committee, which said the government should push the European Union for a copyright term of "at least 70 years". The suggestion was rejected on the grounds that most works that would be affected have previously signed contracts assigning their royalties to record labels, and therefore wouldn't benefit from the extension.
Overall the response is a mixed bag for consumers. It mentions the possibility of legalizing "format shifting", which would allow the copying copyrighted recordings from one format to another.
It's currently illegal in the UK to even Rip a CD or convert songs to MP3 format. Besides allowing both of those practices, considered commonplace in most parts of the world, it would also be beneficial to audiophiles with older, analog recording they'd like to convert to newer digial formats. Both HD DVD and Blu-ray support lossless audio Compression originally designed for the high quality DVD-Audio format, and this could finally open the door for owners of older vinyl records to copy them to digital formats.
On the other hand, the report highlights a serious problem in modern copyright law. While it frequently mentions costs to the entertainment industry, occasionally artists, and once or twice even to consumers, it never once mentions the foundation of all intellectual property laws - public good.
In particular, what's not explained is how the financial interests of privately owned media companies equate to public interest. Without that basic underpinning it's difficult to see laws designed to validate a few companies' business model anything but corporate welfare. Meanwhile many consumers, and even some small businesses, suffer the consequences.
Sources: The Register, Department for Culture, Media, and Sport