Tuesday, 24 March 2009

Beware Pleas Based on Moral Panic


William Patry made this excellent point in tonight's SCL Annual Lecture, specifically in connection with proposals to extend further the term of copyright: political appeals based on  moral panic are most often made where there is asymmetry in the information available: criminal law and copyright law being key examples. There is no evidence from the other side - the alleged perpetrator - unlike in cases where two sets of industry players are pitted against one another, which usually produces hard evidence pointing in each direction (e.g. competition law disputes). So the way is clear for, say, the security agencies or copyright owners to appeal for protection merely because it is "right and just" rather than to protect against any proven harm.

Such pleas may ultimately be futile, of course. Attempts by the music industry to deny access to music downloads neither prevented the rise of Napster and iTunes, nor prevented the steady demise of EMI. As I've also mentioned before, the root cause of music industry disruption is consumer dissatisfaction, not copyright violation.

William Patry's suggestion is to insist on an empirical approach to the issue of whether or not the copyright regime works, rather than a continued assumption that it's a property right that deserves protection at any cost. Only then will a proportionate response emerge. I share the view that in all regulatory matters - like business process issues - one must first define the problem and ascertain its scale before deciding whether or not to devote precious state resources to resolving it. At that point, legislators should insist on finding the root causes and implementing the best solutions to tackle them.

Attempts at providing empirical evidence on these issues in the file-sharing context, for example, have been pathetic. Claims that music providers will lose £1bn in CD sales over the next 5 years are disingenuous when their digital sales are increasing at the rate of 28% a year. And where is the evidence that extending the term of copyright will result in more copyright works that will yield satisfactory incomes for creators? Is it not possible that shortening the copyright term would result in a far greater volume of sales for more artists at lower prices to consumers?

The people should be told before any further extension to copyright is granted.

1 comment:

  1. A thought from some recent top secret work on music publishing.. : )

    The value of music is in the performance not the token which is produced (the copy of a unique individual performance), nor the material that conveys it (vinyl, cd etc). That is why ticket sales and prices of live performances are holding up. Copyright is based on a commodity myth of music which doesn't stand up to scrutiny - just as the commodity theory of money is flawed.

    a more enlightened view of what people value about their use of music might provide new innovations in the way that artists can benefit from their creations beyond the fordist industrial mindset of the old school major labels...

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