Digital Rights Network

This morning I attended the IPPR Creative Britannia event. Mr James Purnell, recently appointed Minister for the Creative Industries, gave the keynote speech (the two other speakers were Ekow Eshun of the Institute for Contemporary Arts and Adam Singer Chief Executive of the collecting societies MCPS and PRS). The speech is now up:

http://www.culture.gov.uk/global/press_notices/archive_2005/purnell_creative_inds_speech.htm

Given recent stories in the press about term extensions it had been thought the Minister might make some announcement on this score. In fact he made *no* mention of this at all. The statements on IP were of the traditional kind: IP is important, we need to protect it, "we need an IP framework that balances the needs of consumers, creators, and businesses" (a statement that sits uneasily with the fact that the Creative Industries IP forum -- created by the DCMS last year -- is rights-holder dominated and has focused almost exclusively on piracy). Unsurprisingly there was also no mention of new, more open approaches to content production and distribution in the private or public sector.

So what did the Minister say? Not that much really:

1. A new joint DTI/DCMS project on modernizing copyright: "I can announce today that DTI and DCMS will set up a joint project to implement our manifesto commitment, chaired by Lord Sainsbury and myself. We will examine in the first place what issues need to be addressed, including the key issue of Digital Rights Management, and the interoperability of new technologies. Obviously the primary role is for industry, which is why we have asked the Creative Industries IP Forum to advise us on this issue."

2. A proposal about a 'Music Council', though this wasn't to set up such a body up but just to do /consultations/ on setting up such a body.

3. Announced a DCMS messageboard/'blog' by which the public (and anyone else) could transmit their views on these and other matters. Now up at:

http://www.culture.gov.uk/creative_industries/discussionforum.htm

The main action points would therefore seem to be:

1. Ensure that any bodies set up (e.g. the Music Council or the advisory group for the joint DCMS/DTI project) incorporates representatives of all stakeholders and not just the large established players. For example consumer and public interest groups should be on it, as well as representatives of the spectrum of artists and entrepreneurs including those who are exploring new ways to make and distribute music.

2. Check out the 'blog' and make sure views are made known

Question on Open Approaches
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In the Q and A afterwards I managed to ask the following:

QU: We've heard today how important protecting, preserving and promoting IP is to the 'Creative Industries'. But we've heard no mention of alternative more open, and potentially complementary, approaches to content production -- for example using Creative Commons licences, particularly for publicly funded projects. The experience of software over the last twenty years is that an open approach -- open source -- can be vibrantly creative (for example the internet is built on it) as well as generating very significant wealth for the economy. Does the minister intend to support more open approaches in parallel with its attention to protecting IP rights.

Adam Singer: conceded open source approach has been valuable (linux) but then slammed "open source copyright" with the statement "creative commons is chainsaw juggling for the under fives"

Minister: didn't say anything at all

Good follow up later from Matt Locke of BBC who queried the "chainsaw juggling description". In response Adam Singer described Lawrence Lessig as the "Martin Luther of Copyright" and said that the music industry's failure to "burn him so far" showed that it was undecided over the best approach to CC (seemed that he might be trying to be conciiatory and suggest CC had some, limited benefits).

Notes on Purnell's Speech
*************************

* Creative Industries Task Force (started years back at start of Labour govt)
* got caught up in cool britannia
* more about parties than policy
* got lost
* Don't want to arrive at a point where we say: Remember when we had great advertising agencies. Need to act, China turned out * 2 million graduates last year, Bollywood, South Korea ....
* How do we make Britain the world's creative hub.
* What makes britain creative
* how do we turn that creativity into business success
* George Cox review currently going on (chairman of Arts Council?)
* US is number 1 but Britain punches well above its weight (emmy's, coldplay etc)
* British reality TV dominates US this summer
* FT + Economist
* Harry Potter
* ....
* At worst we could hinder creativity at best we could foster it.

Four Areas in which Govt Can Work
=================================

1. education
* fellowships for arts school graduates
* entrepreneurs and artists
* our goal shouldn't be to beat to other countries but to share [?? last]
2. Government role (?)
* weird explanation of pleasure externalities to argue that value != price (correct but for different reasons) and that govt should arts even if they don't make any money
* competition: must have most competitive ... in the world
3. IP
* IP is the bedrock the creative economy
* committed in manifesto to moderernize IP to be appropriatte for a digital age
* vital to allow people to make enough money from creative stuff
* bands like coldplay make enough to fund a hundred other bands
* creativity comes from collaboration
* IP framework that balances the needs of consumers, creators, and businesses
* industry is primary: thus will continue to take recommendations from CI IP forum on education and piracy
* DTI and DCMS set up a joint project to implement our manifesto
* DRM
* interoperability
* industry is primary (IP forum will continue)
4. business support and access to capital
* blah
* BBC

Specific Actions
================

1. Film
* British Industry is 3rd biggest in the world
* recommissioning the UK Film Council to look at policy
* 4 key issues: all fairly blah
2. Music
* set up a Music Council
* (a body that could help shape governement policy. It would have been useful to have a body to coordinate response to questions such as digital distribution)
* They (govt + industry) are going to do a feasibility study about how it would be structured and funded
3. DCMS blog:
* going to set up a DCMS site where everyone can post comments
* he will read it though not necessarily act on it
* www.culture.gov.uk -- give your advice
* "how can we support Britains creativity and make profits from it"

Ekow Eshun (ICA)
================

* Govt and corps are top down
* Creativity work bottom up
* Need spontaneity and quickness of the bottum approach
* How do we actually make sure we support excellence rather than mediocrity

Adam Singer (MCPS)
==================

* "All value is becoming a subset of IP"
* Everything from knitting patterns to ... will be IP
* JOKE: will we be having conference in the future of the promise and perils of open source cutlery
* music is already there. music is first
* how do we encourage, preserve and sustain creativity
* stuff on education: multimedia literacy blah
* music and art should be more important
* wealth stems from ideas and rights management is therefore crucial
* copyright should be domestic science in schools
* though of course, eventually, works should be available to all to sustain the "cultural commonwealth"
* patent office reform: need a patent office that is a champion of IP for all industry
* content creators must be protected
* "am i overemphasizing protect and preserve"
* no just look at damage music industry suffers from piracy
* need to preserve tax bases
* protect, protect, protect
* china: not a threat. sees a future of where hardware made in china and software (music) in the UK
* right climate for SMEs
* music council would be great