23 July 2012
Lawyer makes song and dance of copyright log jam at Fringe event
A leading intellectual property lawyer appeared on stage at the Edinburgh Fringe to urge the UK Government to speed up access to millions of photographs, videos, sound recordings, artwork and newspaper articles that are presently out of the reach of the creative industries because of copyright fears.
Recent reports have concluded that far from stimulating creativity, British copyright law is sometimes doing the opposite.
Appearing in his own legal ‘show’ at the Edinburgh Fringe for the fourth successive year, Paul Motion, who heads bto’s Technology & IP and On Line Reputation teams, argues that reform is needed to unlock vast archives of material which cannot be used commercially for fear of litigation by unknown copyright holders who cannot be traced.
Paul Motion said: “The amount of potential source material currently locked away because the copyright owners aren’t known is staggering. One hundred and fifty miles of shelved documents are held by the National Archives and National Records of Scotland, of which up to 40% may be affected by this problem. The Imperial war Museum holds two million photos that can’t be used commercially and ten percent of the British Film Institute’s collection of video and sound recording is also out of reach, all because copyright owners can’t be traced to give permission rights.
“There are ways of trying to trace owners but under the current system, the costs of clearing copyright are astronomical; the BBC and British Library have estimated a total cost of up to £7.3 billion to clear copyright in all of their archives.”
Presenting his 2012 Fringe talk entitled “Is copyright past its sell-by date?”, Paul Motion noted with approval recent positive developments in this area, such as the 2011 Hargreaves Review and the 31 July 2012 Hooper & Lynch Report, which propose that the UK become a ‘copyright hub’ whose function would be to act as a place people could go to search for copyright owners. Even if the copyright hub doesn’t know the owner’s identity, a person using the copyrighted material would be well placed to defend an infringement action.
Paul Motion added: “Hargreaves recognised the problem of these so-called ‘copyright orphan works’ so the copyright hub idea is a good one as it will have many other functions that should simplify copyright licensing and clearance. The Hooper & Lynch Report called for the establishment of a steering group to drive the idea forward. As the Fringe demonstrates every year the UK has a vibrant creative flair and it is vital to the interests of the creative community that these proposals are taken forward by the Government and not kicked into the long grass.”
Paul Motion’s ‘Is copyright past its sell-by date?’ talk was hosted by the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society and was aimed at artists and artist managers in order to discuss and clarify creative legal matters.