Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

Copyright enforcement should be governed by economic evidence, says IP report

18 May 2011, 2:29 pm

The Government should be wary of relying on enforcement powers created by the Digital Economy Act (DEA) to reduce copyright infringement, a Government-commissioned report has said.

The economic impact of file sharing on creative businesses has been minimal and estimates of the scale of illegal downloading are not reliable, the report said.

Professor Ian Hargreaves has said in his review of IP law that the Government should adapt its approach when it has more evidence and that enforcement against file sharers should be only one of a number of copyright-supporting strategies.

Hargreaves said that the evidence is unclear about the amount of illegal downloading but is clear that creative businesses are not suffering major negative economic impact from the activity.

"No one doubts that a great deal of copyright piracy is taking place, but reliable data about scale and trends is surprisingly scarce," said the report. "A detailed survey of UK and international data finds that very little of it is supported by transparent research criteria." "Meanwhile sales and profitability levels in most creative business sectors appear to be holding up reasonably well," it said. "We conclude that many creative businesses are experiencing turbulence from digital copyright infringement, but that at the level of the whole economy, measurable impacts are not as stark as is sometimes suggested."

In that context the Government should be careful about major planned changes to the copyright enforcement regime, the report said.

"We should be wary of expecting tougher enforcement alone to solve the problem of copyright infringement," said the report. "Instead, Government should respond in four ways: by modernising copyright law; through education; through enforcement and by doing all it can to encourage open and competitive markets in licensed digital content, which will result in more legitimate digital content at prices which appeal to consumers."

"The strong online enforcement measures made possible by the Digital Economy Act should be carefully monitored so that the approach can be adjusted in the light of evidence," said the report.

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