Evidence guides Gowers to strike the right balance on copyright

As the author of the Gowers Review into copyright and intellectual property, Andrew Gowers has struck just the right note.

“The evidence he has taken on board should be commended,” said Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the British Library. Like others in the information industry, she praised the government for using evidence to shape its policy.

For those of you who didn’t spend Christmas reading the full 140-odd pages of the report, the Gowers Review covered everything from library archives to the rise and fall of hip-hop as an example of creativity.

“I think generally that the report makes some good recommendations and I am glad to see that making a private copy is now accepted,” said Suw Charman of the Open Rights Group copyright campaign.

“He doesn’t want to start again; instead, he wants to bring intellectual property into a new policy framework,” Brindley said. “But I think the discussions are just beginning.”

The review was a year in the making and eagerly anticipated by the information sector. Charman and Brindley both believe a lot of lobbying will still have to take place before the Gowers recommendations end up as law.

“The music industry is lobbying hard to rubbish this report,” Charman said, referring to Gowers’ refusal to extend the music copyright period beyond the existing 50 years.

Commentator Bill Thompson told the BBC: “The research commissioned by Gowers made it abundantly clear that there is no economic case for extending the term of copyright, and there is certainly no moral case for depriving society of the ability to reuse, remix and reissue material.”

Charman said: “Gowers used a good economics paper on term extension from Cambridge University as the basis for his report.”

Brindley at the British Library was pleased the review had not been hijacked by the music industry – a fear she had expressed to IWR after the national library went on tour with the intellectual property (IP) debate, visiting the Conservative and Labour party conferences in the autumn of 2006. “Gowers has taken a broad view of IP,” she said. “The point the British Library made to Gowers on term extension was that it had to be evidence-based policy.”

However, the British Library wants see more detailed flesh put on the bones of the report. “There are lots of recommendations, but nothing specific on fair dealing – a debate that needs to move forwards,” Brindley said.

Digital rights management (DRM) technology concerns Brindley and she is worried that the report didn’t tackle this difficult issue head-on. “Recommendations 15 and 17 [see box] give cause for concern on DRM. I would like to have seen more about contract law and copyright. It is not explicit if the use of contract law overrides copyright.”

Charman pointed out that not all the Gowers recommendations could be actioned by a British government. “Reform of the Patent Office is relatively simple, but some of the recommendations are at a European level and will require our government to lobby the European Parliament and possibly further, including the World Trade Organization,” she said.

Gowers recommended that the UK Patent Office should be reformed as the UK Intellectual Property Office and an independent strategic advisory board on IP policy formed.

“In today’s global economy, knowledge capital more than physical capital will drive the success of the economy. Against this backdrop, IP rights, which protect the value of creative ideas, are more vital than ever,” Gowers said.

Libraries come out winners from the report with the recommendation that sound recordings can be copied to a new format for archive purposes.

“Allowing format-shifting is incredibly important,” Charman said.

Brindley added that the recommendations on orphaned works would also be welcomed, especially by those in the sciences.

Gowers recruited the British Screen Advisory Council to investigate orphan works – material which is probably in copyright but where the rights holder cannot be identified. Gowers said the Patent Office should issue guidance on what constituted “reasonable search” of orphan works. This guidance should be drawn up with collecting societies, rights holders and archives.

Brindley said the information industry now had to wait and see how and if the government enacted the Gowers recommendations. “If this review is taken forward by the government in the spirit it has been written in, then the government will have achieved a balance in the needs of copyright holders and users.”

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