"We certainly agree with the line that something needs to be
done," Richard Mollet, the BPI's director of public affairs told
the weekly technology law podcast OUT-LAW Radio. The authorisation
route is one of the options the BPI backs; the body is also
discussing a narrow legal change with the Gowers review.
Though the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has
called for a change in UK law to allow people to copy legally
bought tracks on to MP3 players, the BPI says that no law change
would be necessary if it gave permission for the activity.
"Whether one actually changes the law or not is actually a moot
point because it is possible to give consumers that permission
simply through authorisation from existing rights holders," said
Mollet.
Mollet said that the BPI had made its views known to the Gowers
Review, a Government-commissioned report on copyright law reform
due to report its findings this month. It is being conducted by
former Financial Times editor Andrew Gowers.
In the UK any copies of music on CDs or from downloads is
illegal, which means that people who put music on their MP3 players
or computers are breaking the law.
The BPI, which polices copyright theft on behalf of record
labels, has already announced that it will not prosecute people for
copying music to MP3 players. Mollet told OUT-LAW, though, that one
of the solutions the BPI would back is the direct authorisation of
consumers to carry out the activity, with authorisation likely to
be put directly on to CD packaging.
"My understanding of how this would work in practice is that one
might need to put something on product and that would be one of the
potential problems with going down the authorisation route," he
said.
Mollet said that the BPI's stance is not "hard and fast", but
that it would be prepared to go down the authorisation route.
Kay Withers was the author of the IPPR's report recommending the
establishment of a private right to copy. She disagrees that BPI
authorisation would solve the problem. "It's good that the BPI have
said that they're not going to prosecute but it should be the
Government deciding what the consumers and citizens rights are,
rather than citizens."
The IPPR's report said that the fact that no private right to
copy exists not only puts many people on the wrong side of the law
mostly without them knowing it, but also undermines the public's
respect for copyright law in general, and makes serious
infringement more likely.
Withers said that it is also unfair to consumers. "What the law
currently would expect consumers to do just doesn't really seem
fair," she said. "Asking someone who buys a CD in HMV to then have
to go to a digital music store and buy that content again so that
they can listen to it both on their hi-fi and on their mp3 player
just doesn't seem fair."
