British review panel to report on updates of IP law needed to boost innovation and new online business

A review panel into "Intellectual Property and growth", chaired by Ian Hargreaves, the professor of digital economy at Cardiff University and a former editor of the Independent is close to concluding their study on the future of copyright in the United Kingdom.

Next month, they will present their view on the "barriers to new internet-based business models" raised by the "costs of obtaining permissions from existing rights-holders". There's no shortage of examples of these barriers to innovation. Current copyright legislation is said to raise practical barriers to new business development. For example: search engines, live streaming services, the editing, mixing or mashing-up of videos, digitisation and posting online of historical archives, are all about using bits and pieces of other peoples work to construct a new service or product. A ‘fair use’ provision in British copyright law would accommodate this. To need permission of all rights holders concerned is hindering progress of these innovations, many people believe. 

However, many critics say weakening copyright won't make Britain an innovation hot-spot. It will hit the small music publishing and film outfits that create value for the economy by producing content. Although Hargreaves is certain that a status quo is not an option, he has sympathy for this argument: "I don't think the current system is serving content creators as well as it should," he says. In logical terms: catering businesses that reshape and redistribute content without producing it themselves -and without paying for it- to the detriment of the guys that do produce creative works does not sound very durable.

The job of Hargreaves's panel is complicated by the number of competing interests. Internet companies like Google, as well as government agencies like the British Library are waiting in line to launch new services that make ‘fair use’ of content of others. These others are the people that actually create the content. The entertainment industry, independent authors, musicians: they all fear they will no longer be able to make a living if a greater percentage of their work can be processed by others free of charge.

It is very interesting to see these powerful lobbies trying to influence what is essentially a political choice to make by British lawmakers . As this debate has become more and more political, both lobbies start to realise it is not always the most logical argument or true statement that has the most impact. Sometimes it is about choosing the most strategic issue to addresss. Google is mastering this skill very well, suggesting that Google would not have set up in the UK, because the lack of a "fair use" provision there meant that [Google] couldn't be sure that its search engine product would be legal. In general, entrepreneurs reject Britain and take great ideas elsewhere, so a change in law is needed to create a climate for innovation for new technology companies, according to Google. 

Pearson, the publishing company that owns the Financial Times and Penguin, has proposed the creation of an online global rights registry that startup companies could use to discover what they are able to do legally with someone else's publication, film or piece of music and make licence payments accordingly. This proposal shows Pearson too is politically streetwise, as European Commissioner Kroes is a fan of such a copyright registry. 

British prime minister Cameron seems to be among the people that expect the economy as a whole will be served by more relaxed intellectual property legislation. It was a speech delivered last autumn by Cameron, setting out his vision for a "Silicon Roundabout", where his views surfaced.

But by promising a new copyright regime "fit for the internet age", to boost the economic recovery he is pinning his electoral hopes upon, the prime minister even appeared to have pre-judged the outcome of the Hargreaves review. Word goes around that the Hargreaves inquiry could create a fair use review panel to rule over test cases, without the requirement for expensive lawyers. The Hargreaves panel has sifted through hundreds of arguments and proposals on the future of copyright in the UK. Next month we will discover what their advice to British lawmakers would be.

Reference: The Guardian