Gowers was speaking exclusively to weekly technology law podcast
OUT-LAW Radio on World Intellectual
Property Day. He discussed the most controversial issue covered by
his report, the music industry's attempts to have the copyright
term for sound recordings increased to more than its current 50
years.
"Our conclusions were roundly criticised by the music industry
in particular for actually doing the non-revolutionary thing of
leaving the status quo in place, i.e. 50 years' term protection for
sound recordings," he said. "I could have made a case for reducing
it based on the economic arguments."
"We certainly considered it, and if you look at the report that
came from the academics that we commissioned to examine the
arguments and examine the evidence they also argued very robustly
that 50 years could be arguably more than enough," said Gowers, a
former editor of the Financial Times. "In the end we took the
politically prudent course. To be honest reducing it in any case
would be a very big international debate. It would stand very
little chance of making headway in Europe."
In an indication that he was less than sympathetic to the music
industry's cause, Gowers said that he believed there was a chance
that "the line can be held" in Europe at 50 years.
Gowers was commissioned by the Treasury to produce a report and
recommendations on IP law, and he published his findings in
December. In the report he recommended various measures such as the
creation of a private right to copy material, the labelling of
products with digital rights management and a copyright exemption
for derivative or transformative works.
He said that his overall view of IP was that companies had had
enough influence over the law, and that they should gain no more
rights.
"For quite a number of years, probably for decades, intellectual
property protection has been regarded as, in a way, a one-way
ratchet. The people demanding more intellectual property protection
have tended to be larger, better financed, more articulate than the
fragmented number of consumers who pay the price for it," he said.
"I think what we have done with this report is reassert the balance
and make some arguments as to why that ratchet need not go any
further."
"I think that the voice of consumers has been heard to a greater
extent," he said. "I think that there is a recognition that laws
have become outdated or excessively inflexible. In the light of the
rapid pace of economic change, globalisation, digitisation [they]
need to be amended. In the world of copyright frankly quite a few
things that are common practice are treated on the statute book as
illegal and that cannot be a good law."
Gowers said that he suffered no political interference at all
from the Government when conducting his research or producing his
report, but he did say that pragmatism limited the scope of what he
felt able to recommend.
"You have to start from the realisation that intellectual
property is in fact a global system. It just happens to operate
through national jurisdictions," he said. "So the idea that dear
old Britain would somehow reinvent the rules of the road and in
just one country is almost laughable. The fact is it is an
international system operating in many cases through international
treaties."
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