Legal protection should only be given to artists who sign up for copyright exchange, says musicians' rights campaigner

Mark Kelly, chief executive of the Featured Artist Coalition, which campaigns on behalf of musicians and performers, said that the Government should support a digital rights exchange scheme proposed in a recent Government report.

He also backed part of the proposal which said that the Digital Economy Act (DEA) would only protect works whose copyright owners had signed up to the exchange.

In May Professor Ian Hargreaves submitted a review of UK intellectual property (IP) laws and recommended that the Government establish a digital copyright exchange to cut illegal online filesharing.

Hargreaves' proposals advocated that owners of copyrighted material make their works available through a standardised licence. He said that it would make it easier for users of copyright material to obtain the right licences and encourage legal use of copyrighted content.

"If it is implemented correctly we think the digital copyright exchange ... will create a 21st century licensing system that will support and encourage innovation while driving up revenue for rights holders and creators alike," Kelly said in a report published by internet freedoms activists the Open Rights Group.

"Many rights holders balk at the idea of their works being covered by some sort of blanket deal. But the truth is that nobody really knows if there is more value in individually negotiated deals or from the sort of landscape that would ensue from a well-functioning digital copyright exchange," Kelly said.

"What we can say for sure is that the value of copyrights have been driven south over the last decade despite the best efforts of many to turn the clock back. Isn’t it about time they moved over and let somebody else drive?" Kelly said.

The Government should offer incentives to copyright owners to join the digital copyright exchange, Kelly said. Legal tools available to copyright holders to help them target online copyright infringers should only be available to rights holders who licence their material through the exchange, he said.

"We like the ingenious idea put forward by Hargreaves that works will only have the protection of the Digital Economy Act (DEA) if they are registered with the digital copyright exchange," Kelly said.

"We hope the government is bold enough to add this small carrot to the 3 strikes stick they have given to the rights holders. If not, it’s unlikely that the digital copyright exchange will have enough registered works to make it very useful for anything," Kelly said.

The DEA is a controversial UK law which was rushed through Parliament shortly before the 2010 General Election. The law allows telecoms regulator Ofcom to write new regulations governing how ISPs should be involved in attempts to stop copyright infringement.

In a draft code of practice published in May last year, Ofcom said that internet users should receive three warning letters from their internet service provider (ISP) if they are suspected of copyright infringements online.

Details of illegal filesharers that receive more than three letters in a year would be added to a blacklist, the draft code said. Copyright holders would have access to the list to enable them to identify infringers, it said.

The Government is expected to approve Ofcom's draft code next year.

Provisions within the DEA allow the Culture Secretary to draw up new regulations that would see courts decide whether to force ISPs to block access to pirated copyright works.

"We know that the government won’t go as far as making registration compulsory. But we would like to see them doing more to make [a] digital copyright exchange a working reality than they did following the last review of IP by [Andrew] Gowers in 2006," Kelly said.

The Government hopes to respond to Hargreaves' proposals before Parliament breaks up for summer recess on 20th July, a spokesman for the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) told OUT-LAW.

Editor’s note 15/07/2011: We changed the sentence in this story dealing with the Culture Secretary’s powers because of an inaccuracy pointed out by a reader. Because regulations on this have not yet been drawn up it is impossible to go into more detail about how they would work