Music groups call for changes to copyright laws

A group of independent music industry organisations want the UK's copyright laws changed and made more appropriate for the digital age.

Their aim is to make sharing or downloading music fairer for both consumers and copyright holders. The discussion held today, was sparked by the Association of Independent Music's (Aim) draft discussion paper entitled "Copyright Reform in the Digital Age".

The group, comprised of independent record labels, composers and songwriters, musicians and performers, music managers, music publishers and their collecting societies, discussed the problems that have arisen because of the way the law stands today.

Currently all sides lose: Music creators are not being paid when people use peer to peer (P2P) sites which leads to consumers being sued for infringing copyright.

What the group thinks particularly unfair in the current setup are companies, such as internet service providers, that sit in the middle of the current battle. These companies have legal immunity while profiting extensively argued the music associations.

David Ferguson, chairman of the British Academy of Composers & Songwriters said: "For too long the ISPs and telcos have shirked their responsibilities, using music as a tool to sell their own services, whilst making little effort to ensure fair payment to its creators."

However the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) said ISPs can't be held accountable for what their customers do.

"ISPs bear no liability for illegal file sharing as the content is not hosted on their servers. Although such files may be transmitted across an ISP's network, ISPs are 'mere conduits' of information, as per the E-Commerce Regulations 2002.

"ISPs are no more able to inspect and filter every single packet passing across their network than the Post Office is able to open every envelope," it said in a statement.

So the only way to end this stalemate believe the independent music organisations, which included Aim, the British Music Rights and the Musicians' Union, will be to enter into licensing negotiations with companies such as ISPs, device manufacturers and mobile operators.

However the current copyright framework makes these difficult to put in place so there must be a series of changes to the UK copyright laws.

They have proposed a new right – called a Value Recognition Right – which would allow the music industry to create a commercial relationship with any company deriving value from either the sharing or storage of music.

This will allow them to licence companies such as ISPs as intermediaries. At the same time they want to encourage and legitimise rather than demonise technologies such as P2P and Bluetooth which consumers are increasingly using as a means of accessing and sharing music.

The group also wants to make unlicensed intermediaries and not consumers the target of copyright enforcement actions.

The group's proposed changes will be sent to the Gowers review on revamping current intellectual property rights legislation . The review is expected to announce a framwork for change this autumn.

This is the second time this week ISPs have come under pressure from the music industry. On Monday the British Phonographic Industry called on Tiscali and Cable & Wireless to pull the plug on file sharers .