UK Music Rights Holders Launch New Dispute Resolution Process June 27, 2010
Posted by Bill Jones in Law, Music, UK.add a comment
If you believed all the musicians, eager to lay their claim to fame and some royalties, some Beatles tracks had no fewer than six drummers! Nearly 90% of UK musicians earn less than £16,000 a year from their profession.
Allocating hard-earned royalty pennies to each performer properly can be a nightmare, if it is even possible in some cases. This is one of the aspects of monetization that is hidden from public view. Yet resolving such issues through the legal system is an expensive business which inhibits sensible resolution of financial matters.
That’s why PPL (Phonographic Performance Ltd), the music licensing company that, on behalf of 42,000 performers and 5,000 record companies, licenses the use of recorded music in the UK, has launched an innovative service. It’s probably a global first of its type. PPL’s Dispute Resolutions Procedure is designed to avoid going to the courts to settle a dispute.
It has three components:
| Process | Participant Obligation |
| Adjudication | Non binding |
| Arbitration | Binding |
| Mediation | Facilitation |
…which are not mutually exclusive.
Significant thought has gone into creating a fair and transparent process led by Ian Mill QC and Fran Nevrkla, the CEO of PPL. Other QC’s (senior-level UK attorneys) will support the process.
Whilst this appears to bypass the law, in reality it doesn’t. Arbitration procedure is part of English law and enforceable under it. Mediation is part of the civil procedure rules.
All this is to be welcomed, as it allows the commerce of rights to proceed much more fluidly without the threat of expensive lawyers looming in background. Apparently other international rights organizations are taking a keen interest in these developments.
Bill Jones is CEO of Global Village Ltd.
New Initiatives by the European Commission and UK June 1, 2010
Posted by Bill Jones in Economics, Europe, Law, UK.add a comment
The Copyright and Enforcement Directorate of the UK’s Intellectual Property Office has reported on two new EU developments in a broadcast email. Since I can’t find the URL for the Directorate [I can't either - ed], I’m left to summarize:
The European Commission has published two recent papers which will impact on our industry:
A New Strategy for the Single Market: This report addresses the challenges to the single market. The report comments on the ill-adapted IP legislation as a barrier to economic progress. It also recognizes that low-cost and legally secure protection of IPRs is of great importance.
The paper proposes, inter alia:
- An EU-wide copyright law, including an EU framework for copyright clearance and management;
- Harmonized copyright levies on blank media and equipment (to simplify the business environment); and
- Adoption of the EU-wide patent and a single patent jurisdiction as a matter of urgency.
A Digital Agenda for Europe: This first initiative is under the Commission’s flagship “Europe 2020” economic program and its main Telecoms and Copyright strategy document.
The text is very wide ranging. The Paper considers transactions in the digital environment to be too complex, with inconsistent implementation of the rules across member states.
It concludes that the EU needs to enhance the protection against online violations of intellectual property rights.
Intellectual Property-related key points in the Digital Agenda include:
- A commitment on reforming governance of collecting societies, and a new initiative to look into cross-border licensing.
- A commitment to orphan works legislation, and looking into out-of-print works
- A commitment to evaluate (not revise) the EU E-commerce Directive this year; and
- A commitment to strengthening Europeana, the European digital library.
Meanwhile, UK’s telecommunications regulator Ofcom has published its consultation on its draft code of practice to reduce online copyright infringement as part of its new duties under the Digital Economy Act 2010: Online Infringement of Copyright and the Digital Economy Act 2010.
As austerity bites, many European countries have to reduce government expenditure as a proportion of GDP – some have started already. Figures in the range of 5% to 10% of GDP are bandied around. These will bite very deeply into initiatives, delivery and operations. Individual departments and agencies could well be subjected to reductions of 25%.
One also can’t see the EU escaping this development since it is funded to the extent of approx 1.24% of the Union’s gross national income (GNI), by individual countries (0.73% of their GNI), duties charged on imports from non-EU states, and a VAT component.
So while all the above initiatives are reality, one wonders what effect these austerity measures will have on them over time.
Bill Jones is CEO of Global Village Ltd.
New UK Research Report on Digital Copyright May 27, 2010
Posted by Bill Jones in UK.add a comment
The UK’s Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property Policy has just published a new report commissioned by it on “The Economics of Copyright and Digitisation: A Report on the Literature and the Need for Further Research”. It is over 100 pages long so I haven’t yet read it in detail.
Nonetheless, a glance through its content indicates a well researched and presented treatise which, in the nature of a research report, calls for further work. It challenges some mantras, identifies that some value chain positions do not appear to be supported by evidence, and poses a number of new questions.
Given the public expenditure budgetary cuts working their way through so many European countries, and which may also gain traction in the European Union if only to bow to the public mood across Europe, it’s likely that further work in this area will be curtailed. Even so, a new line of research has been triggered to be revisited.
So I commend it to you as an excellent reference document.
Some of you may wish to agree or disagree with its contents on this blog.
Bill Jones is CEO of Global Village Ltd.
UK Digital Economy Bill Becomes Law April 21, 2010
Posted by Bill Jones in Law, UK.2 comments
Contrary to our expectations, the UK’s Digital Economy Bill made it on to the British statute book! It received Royal Assent on April 8 – the Bill is now an Act of Parliament (a/k/a law). I and many others were wrong in our belief that there wasn’t enough time to get it through parliament prior to the imminent election.
It emerged after a bizarre (but apparently legal) process, including the so-called “wash up”, where opposition parties allow the government to get its outstanding legislation on to the statute books prior to an election, having been through a rapid barter and trade of the contentious elements.
A significant outcome of this was the dropping of the “graduated response” (a/k/a “three strikes”) provision, in which repeat online copyright infringers would have their ISP accounts suspended or terminated.
It’s a wide ranging Act. Most of the provisions of this Act in relation to copyright appear to constitute amendments of other statutes and are to be found in Clause 17.
The Act implements some but not all of the recommendations in the Digital Britain report. In that respect, it’s the legal manifestation of a political report, drafted with insufficient scrutiny in the parliamentary process. It is 60 pages long, although only a minor part relates to intellectual property.
The relevant parts cover continuingly controversial provisions giving a Minister the power to order internet service providers (ISP’s) to take technical measures against subscribers – the most obvious being suspension of online access – in order to tackle online copyright infringement. The Minister is also empowered to make regulations giving the courts the power to order blocking injunctions on specific websites. Maximum fines for copyright infringements are standardised and increased. The public lending right is extended to cover publications in non-traditional formats such as e-books.
The Act gives ISPs the responsibility of notifying subscribers of any copyright infringement, initially identified by rights holders. ISPs will be obliged to react to copyright infringement reports from rights holders – containing evidence that a user has engaged in some form of piracy – by notifying the relevant users of these reports. ISPs will effectively have to pass on warnings to their customers in writing encouraging them to lawfully access material rather than break the law. The courts will clearly have a significant amount of interpretation to do. Some provisions are aimed at gathering data, which facilitates the UK government’s intention to ensure that any legal changes have bases in evidence. This comes at a time when many are questioning the validity of the evidence (e.g., loss of revenue) used to persuade Members of Parliament that action was initially required.
The ISPs are required to maintain anonymous user-specific records of their notifications, so as to assist rights holders in identifying the serial offenders, against which the rights holders can take further action (once they have obtained a court order for a particular user’s identity). The instigator of the action is the rights holder and not the ISP. In that respect the ISP is an agent.
The anti-piracy measures that impose these obligations on ISPs are unworkable and unenforceable until private industry or Ofcom, the UK communications regulator and main regulatory agent for this bill, draws up a new code that will dictate how they work in practice. This process will not commence until after the General Election – and may not finish until the end of this year 2010, or early next year in 2011.
The Minister also has the power to intervene in the operation of internet domain registries.
This may result in the development of later sanctions against internet users. This could involve an order for ISPs to impose technical measures on rogue users, such as throttling their bandwidth or, in the extreme, suspending a user’s service. While these sanctions are some of the more controversial aspects of this Act, the earliest they would be seen is over 12 months from when the Code comes into force – which would be around the first quarter of 2012 at the earliest, and even that is not certain. Ofcom must also initially assess whether such measures are required, although the final decision rests with the Minister, which is subject to approval by both Houses.
Users will have the usual rights of appeal to a tribunal against both copyright infringement reports and any technical measures imposed upon them. Should an ISP fail to comply with a technical measure, it could be fined up to £250,000. ISPs are not happy about this, to say the least.
Blocking injunctions are a further possibility. These uncertain and significantly opposed provisions in the Act give the Minister powers to request a court to issue a blocking injunction, which would require ISPs to block access to websites used in connection with the infringement of copyright. These provisions appear widely drafted and it remains unclear what effect will be given to them – it appears to be a catch-all backstop should other provisions prove inadequate or unworkable.
Although any provision will require approval of Parliament and a 60 day review period before it comes into force, a full scrutiny of such provision (as is usually the case with primary legislation) will not be required. This appears a move away from traditional law making and again towards the use of executive powers.
Further measures in the Act include enforcement tariffs such as fines. The penalty for online and physical copyright infringements under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act has been increased from £5,000 to a maximum of £50,000.
The Act has ducked the issue of orphan works.
Rights holders will naturally be happier now that there is a new scheme on the statute book for combating online piracy. This is a significant achievement for them.
Whether it has the effect of changing behaviour and being effective in addressing copyright theft remains to be seen. That copyright theft is a crime has been reinforced and that is an important statement.
What the Act is unlikely to do is to have a huge effect on dedicated internet pirates, who will be innovative in bypassing the technical measures and hiding their identities. The UK Courts are prepared to find internet service providers liable for the infringements of copyright committed by their users. Should blocking injunctions emerge, they may go a little further to solving that problem.
Even then this new law would have to be understood, respected and obeyed by every citizen and employee in the land – that’s a tall order!
The UK Digital Economy Act is an inelegant and incomplete piece of work, whatever your views are on the substance and provisions; it may be a case of acting in political haste to repent at leisure amid the bureaucracy. It’s been a controversial journey on a route to who knows where.
I anticipate a significant stream of clarifications and interpretations as enforcement takes hold. Moreover, should the opposition party win the imminent election, then Ofcom is due for a major shakeup and significant downsizing, which will limit its ability to give effect to the provisions of the Act. Nevertheless, the opposition party supports the need to reduce piracy; it’s a question of how.
The government has clearly listened to the rights holders and decided to accept the relevant recommendations contained in the various reports that have been published (Gowers, Digital Britain). The rights holders are happy; the ISPs and various other stakeholders are disappointed.
The new component dealing with British intellectual property legislation has comparatively few friends other than rights holders, judging by public comment. Most people remain understandably ignorant and confused. Significant education will be required.
It has achieved the unstable and uncomfortable position of having one part of the IPR value chain pitched against another on issues of legality and enforcement, with citizens’/human rights possibly caught in the middle. Concerns remain over its impact on consumers and ability to cut piracy.
It’s a step into the unknown.
Bill Jones is CEO of Global Village Ltd.
ACTA Process to Go Public April 19, 2010
Posted by Bill Jones in Law.add a comment
The negotiators of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) are expected to publish the first official draft of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement on Wednesday April 21, after various previous versions of the secretive document have been leaked. This development follows the negotiations which took place in Wellington, New Zealand last week.
Strangely, after such lengthy discussions, the negotiators say that this session led to improved understanding of the respective national regimes and how they worked in practice. They also worked to narrow existing differences in the areas of Civil Enforcement, Border Measures, Criminal Enforcement and Special Measures for the Digital Environment.
It’s a tad disappointing that the supranational and national agencies apparently remain in ignorance of worldwide national laws and practices after the money that’s been spent, the reports produced, inter-governmental cooperation and information exchanges and, the conferences organised. What have they been doing with citizens’ taxes?
The negotiators now appear of a mind to open the consultation to people and organizations possessing a wide range of specialist and professional skill and expertise, who have so far been excluded – that’s gracious of them! Yet they still wish to maintain confidentiality regarding the negotiating positions of the participants, who supposedly are representative democracies where their governments are accountable to their electorates. So in whose name is this being done?
It appears that a “graduated response” or “three strikes” provision for terminating the Internet accounts of those who repeatedly share unauthorized content will not be in the text, although a number of other provisions and new criminal offences will be. Apparently ACTA’s negotiators do not wish to interfere with a country’s ability to respect its citizen’s fundamental rights and liberties.
The press release also indicates that ACTA will be consistent with the WTO Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) of 1994 and will respect the Declaration on TRIPS.
There is no proposal to oblige ACTA participants to require authorities to search travelers’ baggage or their personal electronic devices for infringing materials at border crossings.
Not only have the European Parliament and EU Privacy Czar been concerned about these negotiations but ISPs have also been making their views felt.
The next meeting is scheduled for June, with the aim of concluding ACTA as soon as possible in 2010.
Bill Jones is CEO of Global Village Ltd.
ACTA Acts Behind Closed Doors March 15, 2010
Posted by Bill Jones in Law.2 comments
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) currently under negotiation is a global intellectual property rights treaty which addresses copyright, as well as patent and other areas.
It would appear to be a secretive process.
Indications from behind closed doors suggest that the negotiators wish to adopt similar provisions to the Notice and Takedown and anti-circumvention provisions included in the United States’ Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). A version of Progressive Response, a/k/a “Three Strikes,” is also being considered.
Those participating in the treaty’s negotiations include representatives of the US, European Union (EU) , Australia, Switzerland, Japan, Canada, South Korea, etc. governments. And the number of participants is growing.
The seventh negotiating round occurred in Guadalajara, Mexico in late January. The next round will take place in New Zealand in mid-April, and the ninth round is scheduled before the TRIPS Council in Geneva early in June.
While it appears that this treaty’s negotiations are not occurring under the auspices of any recognized supranational governmental organization such as G8, WTO, WIPO or other existing formal structures, there appears a tacit recognition that there should be a global organization created for ACTA oversight. The proposed name is ACTA Oversight Council.
The role of ISPs, in terms of their potential responsibility regarding copyright (among other things), is a core topic for debate and possible agreement.
There are many aspects of these developments that could have significant, fundamental effects on copyright laws in the years to come. It appears that national law makers have decided that the existing processes for dealing with national and global IPR issues are inadequate and too cumbersome. They are therefore choosing a new route and developing new processes.
The initial announcement by the EU, US, Switzerland and Japan appears to build upon a recent discovery by the EU: The EU found treaties to be more convenient than existing legal processes during their renegotiation of the EU constitution to underpin an expanded EU and to change its workings and governance. EU institutions and governments found that the process of negotiating constitutions to be too cumbersome and often unpopular politically at national level. They found the constitution to be too difficult to bring in through national parliaments (viz France, Denmark, Ireland and the Czech Republic), and that they could achieve the same objectives more efficiently by negotiating treaties that become legal obligations on national legislatures.
At the same time, there does appear to be some recognition of the closed nature of the ACTA negotiations. Last Wednesday, the European Parliament voted, by an overwhelming 663-13 margin, to call for transparency and full disclosure on ACTA negotiations and to raise concerns regarding the Progressive Response items amongst others. The European Parliament is currently being kept in the dark by those in EU institutions negotiating the treaty behind closed doors and without visible democratic approval. Unless fully informed throughout, the Parliament has threatened to bring a case before the European Court of Justice to force more transparency in the process.
Similarly, various US-based advocacy groups have raised alarms about the secrecy of the process, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge.
ACTA appears no less than a mechanism for changing IPR related laws under the guise of international partnership and cooperation. It therefore has the ability to affect national and international IPR laws and regulations in a way that does not require any of the same scrutiny at national levels. What have been national legal issues to be decided by courts of law could now conveniently become regulations which are adjudicated and enforced by non-governmental organizations. The accountability of national governments in these areas to their electorates may be subverted by extraterritorial laws and regulations.
The possibility that new international trade agreements within a treaty can be brought into national law implies creating new national legal processes which may or may not conveniently fall into the existing frameworks. In other words, this treaty may be creating new national legislative processes in parallel with the existing ones. Certainly different countries will be affected in different ways.
The treaty may create new legal precedents, such as the role of ISPs as judge and jury on intellectual property offenses without an adequate appeal and recourse within normal national law making processes.
Most interestingly, national lobbyists, national companies, SMEs, and individuals are unable to participate in or democratically influence this process. National debates may be largely superfluous. Even regional entities (e.g., lobbyists in Brussels or Washington) could become limited in visibility, access, and impact. Influence will be limited to global organizations and global corporations with deep pockets.
These negotiations are being held in apparent secrecy behind closed doors. This is reminiscent of the EU lawmaking process, in which final texts emerge from the institutions to receive approval (rarely rejection) by the EU Parliament, which then become obligations on national legislatures. Traditional law making processes by national legislatures in the full glare of searching democratic lights may become casualties.
As a more particular example of the potential impact of ACTA on digital copyright, the practical experience of Progressive Response enactment in some countries may not educate the negotiators but rather instead increase their resolve to use such devices to enforce global intellectual property agreements.
The implications are made all the more disturbing by the lack of openness of the ACTA process. If anyone has an insider view, we would appreciate a comment posted here!
Bill Jones is CEO of Global Village Ltd.
UK Digital Economy Bill Progresses with Haste February 9, 2010
Posted by Bill Jones in Law, UK.add a comment
The UK government’s Digital Economy Bill is proceeding at some pace through the legislative process – somewhat contrary to my previous comments and general expectations. The main driver is the upcoming obligatory general election, with May 6th openly blurted by ministers as the probable day, although no official date has been set.
The Bill (which unusually started in the upper House of Lords) has moved through its committee stage after two readings, whilst it also has to negotiate the lower House of Commons. It has many other stages to negotiate: two in the upper house and 5 in the lower house, with significant line by line, word by word scrutiny and votes on amendments – all very time-consuming.
Progressive response was keenly debated, with more questions raised than answers provided. Of concern were issues such as: is it the right mechanism to deal with copyright infringement; how do we implement it practically, fairly and firmly; unintended consequences; and possible adverse reactions and responses by citizens and companies.
At this stage no firm decisions have been made, but clearly the government is intent on getting this bill into legislation. It is using a range of devices to accelerate it through the processes, apparently brushing aside some of the concerns regarding progressive response, but the detail will come back to slow the process down.
These developments are taking place against the backdrop of more than 80 other bills competing for legislative time, and new initiatives being announced on the fly and inserted into existing bills – all demanding the institutions’ time. Furthermore, more members of Parliament are announcing that they are standing down at the next election, switching off, and increasingly not turning up to vote, making the passage of the bill less certain.
Whilst I had previously indicated that it was unlikely to come into law, and the balance of probabilities continue to indicate that, one can’t deny the governments’ intent to complete the process in time.
The key areas being legislated on include:
- Extending the role of the UK telecoms regulator OFCOM to include reporting on communications infrastructure and media content
- Imposing obligations on internet service providers to reduce online copyright infringement, and allowing the Secretary of State to amend copyright legislation to the same end
- Allowing the Secretary of State to intervene in Internet domain name registration
- Requiring Channel Four TV to provide public service content on a range of media
- Providing more flexibility over the licensing of Channel 3 and Channel 5 TV services, and allowing OFCOM to appoint providers of regional and local news
- Modifying the broadcasting licensing regime to facilitate switchover to digital radio
- Allowing variation of the public service provision in Channel 3 and 5 TV licences
- Providing OFCOM with additional powers over electromagnetic spectrum access
- Extending the range of video games that are subject to age-related classification
- Providing for the regulation of copyright licensing
- Including non-print formats in the public lending right payment scheme
All in all, this is a weighty and pervasive bill.
Progressive response might fall into the “too difficult” legislative tray whilst the government concentrates on the more substantive items in this wide ranging bill to get it through in time.
Bill Jones is CEO of Global Village Ltd.
Mobile World Congress: A Preview February 4, 2010
Posted by Bill Jones in Events, Mobile.add a comment
What can we expect from next week’s Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona this year in the copyright and technology arena?
I think it will be a physically quieter show for a variety of reasons. It should also be a slightly lower key show in terms of product announcements etc., due to:
- The continued emphasis in the industry is on cost cutting and infrastructure sharing to deliver returns; so we can expect announcements on deals, technology and products in that domain.
- Investment houses are also encouraging operators to look at demergers to release value as “sum of the parts valuations” are greater than the whole. The effect of this is to consume management attention on these issues whilst having less focus on new products and services.
- Both of these will lead to fewer attendees (cost cutting) and fewer/smaller exhibits offset by more conference time for discussions and debates.
- Many corporates (large and SME’s) have told me that they either shan’t be attending or that their presence is scaled back.
- Technology vendors continue to retrench in the face of quieter markets with the attendant culling of less certain projects.
- The industry has majored on LTE (Long Term Evolution, also known as 4G) as a successor to GSM variants and derivatives, and relegated WiMax and WiFi to niche markets. DRM proposals for the GSM-ish world will quietly be abandoned as new architectures will be required for LTE.
- The current emphasis on app stores will see increasing attention paid to copyright and technology issues. I expect a flurry of announcements here.
- Mobile TV will also command more attention.
- Gaming will also be more visible now that Intel has announced its dual core processors, which enable greater localized processing and content integration in the handset.
- NFC (Near Field Communication) and e-ticketing will also be showing progress, although innovative ideas are hampered by a somewhat reluctant partner ecosystem within which they have to work.
- User experience will command greater attention as the industry fights to reduce churn. Anything that smacks of making life difficult for users will be less successful in gaining traction
- Monetization will also feature more as increasingly viable solutions proliferate into the market.
- Social networking as a revenue driver will be featured, as will M2M and location based services.
- I suspect there will be fewer new mass market consumer product announcements as vendors take other opportunities to differentiate their offerings from the crowded market against a backdrop of reduced market shares, offset by increased niche market products where differentiation can yield better margins.
- And finally, I expect the increased patent litigations between players to occupy conversation time
I shan’t be attending this year – but of course the probability is that I could be wrong on many if not all of the above!
Bill Jones is CEO of Global Village Ltd.
Mobile User Experience Hampered by Copyright and Technology December 22, 2009
Posted by Bill Jones in Mobile, Services.add a comment
I recently chaired a two day global conference on mobile user experience in London. Delegates came from US, Europe, Korea, Japan, China, and elsewhere. The usual major players were there, including Vodafone, Telefonica, Samsung, LG, BBC, News International, and Qualcomm as well as boutique design houses.
I got the sense that this was a tricky area for all players.
Whilst in some sense Apple had set a standard with the iPhone to which many aspired, its impact on revenues and bottom line remains small.
Operators are culling their device portfolios (from thousands to less than a hundred in some cases) simply because of the customer service and support costs. Yet the arrival of iPhone has operator CEOs taking a real interest — possibly for the first time — in user experience and saying “this is what we want.” However, we didn’t hear that iPhone would become a major player in the market; its impact on financials is low. Rather it is an exemplar which others are now following.
Of real interest is the App Store, ads and add-ons. But while the iPhone store contains over 90,000 apps, only a few get real usage and traction. Costs and IPR are barriers to more uptake of media applications.
Many spoke of the intellectual property challenges in delivering quality user experiences. Complexity abounds. Designers know what they want but are thwarted in the challenges of bringing quality user experience to market.
And this is at a time when clearly the industry is moving towards the virtualization/cloud computing model and taking functionality off the device to the core. The newly launched Vodafone 360 is such a service. It has a rich App store in which they’ve been able to make some progress in thinking through the IPR and technology issues from an operator and device vendor perspective – a rare development and not an easy thing in this commercially polarized world twixt operator and device vendor.
But corridor gossip also spoke of Intel bringing out a dual processor for mobile devices next year; this will bring significant functionality back to the device.
The other significant vector was the way in which convergence is becoming a reality, leading to similar experiences on the mobile phone screen and the PC. Some spoke of mobile devices now becoming primary target environments for applications that are subsequently adapted for the PC rather than vice versa. The industry recognises that the installed base of mobile devices globally is greater than PC’s.
Finally, managing the IPR issues in social networking was also a challenge to which few answers were proffered.
Bill Jones is CEO of Global Village Ltd.
Google Meets Harry Potter — Well Not Quite! December 3, 2009
Posted by Bill Jones in Europe, Publishing, UK.add a comment
Nearly midnight on Saturday evening two weeks ago I was given a personal tour of the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. I was at my cousin’s birthday party in the Divinity School, which was used as the infirmary in Harry Potter’s films – the Duke Humfrey’s Library was used as the Hogwarts library in the same films.
The Bodleian is one of the six (and was the first) copyright libraries in the UK. A copyright library is entitled to one of the first copies of every published work in UK, including manuscripts, books, journals, DVDs, CDs, film, etc. The library was opened in 1488, although a separate university library had existed since 1320. Following the usual local skirmishes in Europe at the time, Thomas Bodley rescued the library. It was Bodley who negotiated the “copyright library” concept. Today the library has four million items and is rapidly expanding.
Google is digitizing the total Bodleian collection following a 2006 agreement. It will be a long process, especially given the fragility of so much of the collection. They would appear to have scanned half a million titles already. Google is also digitizing national libraries in other countries.
The attendant copyright issues are now surfacing, now that politicians seem to have thought a bit more about the wisdom of this move. On the one hand one can see the attractions of having the world’s information online and having a massive digital library. But under guises of differing arguments, reactions are developing in the capitals of Europe.
Germany’s Angela Merkel has said that her government is opposed to this development, and the Paris courts have entered the fray on behalf of authors.
Now that the new EU structures are in place, one can see this becoming a major EU issue. The UK has already called for increased international cooperation in copyright matters. This has the making of a major copyright and commercial issue for all parties.
Its unlikely that Harry Potter can help and meet Google back in the Bodleian Library, but a bit of his magic may be required to solve the emerging issues in an acceptable timescale for commercial interest.
Bill Jones is CEO of Global Village Ltd.
Bill Rosenblatt
Azita Arvani
Bill Jones
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