Extending the Term: The Gowers Review and the Campaign to Increase the Length of Copyright in Sound Recordings

Abstract

After the UK government commissioned a review of intellectual property in 2005, a campaign to “Extend the Term” of copyright in sound recordings was orchestrated by trade magazine Music Week on behalf of the recording industry and performing artists. Alan McGee was one of the few dissenting voices and stated quite explicitly that the campaign was motivated by major record companies wanting to protect their profits from the back catalogs of heritage rock acts rather than the rights of independent labels or the priorities of performers. This article will examine the arguments about the perceived discrimination against record companies and performers and ask whether increasing the term of fifty years is a sensible solution to this problem. It will also explore the way in which copyright has been treated as if it is a form of physical property and perceived as a pension for aging rock stars rather than a short-term monopoly right that allows creators and entrepreneurs an opportunity to recoup their investment and make a profit for a limited period of time. The debate exposed a hostile and damaging division between academics and representatives of the music industries and the conclusion will ask how academics can contribute to the policy-making process in a way that ensures their voices are taken seriously.

Notes

[1] For a discussion of New Labour's cultural policy and the creative economy, see Schlesinger.

[2] British Music Rights was an organization that represented the interests of composers, songwriters, music publishers, and the collection societies PRS and MCPS. In February 2008, Feargal Sharkey was appointed Chief Executive and, in September 2008, it was rebranded as UK Music, “a new organisation representing the collective interest of the UK's commercial music industry, from artists, musicians, composers and songwriters, to record labels, music managers, music publishers, collecting societies and studio producers” (UK Music).

[3] In its Review of the Economic Evidence Relating to an Extension of the Term of Copyright in Sound Recordings, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law drew attention to the complicated nature of US copyright law in relation to sound recordings: “Although it is commonly stated that the term for copyright in sound recordings is 95 years from release or 120 years from creation (whichever expires first), it is worth noting that the actual position is considerably more complex” (CIPIL 7).

[4] A subsequent review of intellectual property and its relationship to economic growth, commissioned by Prime Minister David Cameron in November 2010 and conducted by Ian Hargreaves, would support these findings of the Gowers Review. It concluded that “IP policy has not always been developed in a way consistent with the economic evidence” (Hargreaves 19) and refers specifically to copyright term extension as an example.

[5] “Copyright is a monopoly and produces all the effects which the general voice of mankind attributes to monopoly…the effect of monopoly is to make articles scarce, to make them dear, and to make them bad…. It is good that authors be remunerated; and the least exceptional way of remunerating them is by a monopoly. Yet monopoly is an evil; for the sake of good, we must submit to evil; but the evil ought not to last a day longer than is necessary for the purpose of securing the good” (Macaulay quoted in Towse 57).