p2pnet.net News:- Trying it on, the Big Four Organized Music cartel’s UK enforcement arm, the BPI, says a YouGov poll it bought and paid for reports most British consumers, “support the record industry’s battle for extended copyright protection for UK artists”.

The poll, spuriously entitled British Consumers Demand Fair Play On Copyright For British Musicians, purports to, “provide an insight into consumers’ attitudes as the British music industry awaits results of the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property, set to be published at the end of November,” says the BPI.

However, the review, “should update the 300-year-old copyright laws to take account of the changes in the way people want to listen to music, watch films and read books,” says the Institute for Public Policy Research, recommending a legal ‘private right to copy‘ to allow people to make copies of CDs, or DVDs for personal us.

The new right, “would legalise the actions of millions of Britons without any significant harm to the copyright holders,” says the IPPR.

And an online petition has just been launched asking prime minister Tony Blair to create a new exception to copyright law that gives individuals the right to create a private copy of copyrighted materials for their own personal use, including back-ups, archiving and shifting format.

Meanwhile, “We are hugely encouraged that the majority of British consumers agree with us that UK musicians should receive as much copyright protection as their US counterparts,” says the BPI’s Peter Jamieson.

The IPPR recommends that the British government, “should reject calls from the UK music industry to extend copyright term for sound recordings beyond the current 50 years,” arguing there’s no evidence to suggest current protections provided in law are insufficient.

In fact, “The Government should act to ensure that Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology does not continue to affect the preservation of electronic content by libraries,” says the IPPR. “The British Library should be given a DRM-free copy of any new digital work and libraries should be able to take more than one copy of digital work.”

Moreover, circumvention of DRM consumer control technology should stop being illegal once copyright has expired, it says.

The so-called BPI (British Phonographic Industry) is owned by Warner Music (US), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and, finally, EMI (UK).

Also See:
private right to copy – ‘Change UK copyright laws’, October 30, 2006
new exception – UK online copyright protest, November 15, 2006

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