[d at DCC] British Study concludes economic evidence to increase copyright term for sound recordings is weak.

[Russell McOrmond]

Robert Smits wrote:
> The Gowers Committee has reported that the economic evidence for extending the 
> term of copyright for sound recordings is quite weak. 
> 
> The full report ca be found here.
> 
> http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/537/D3/gowers_cipilreport.pdf


   What I am looking forward to is a general study on copyright term.

   a) Moving to a fixed term (not tied to the death of the "author", who 
is for many types of works undocumented).
   b) Moving to a renewal system (IE: short fixed-term for unregistered 
works, term extension for renewal that is fully registered).   This 
would require changes to Berne, but then again this wouldn't be that 
much more radical than any of the other proposals we have seen.
   c) The costs associated with orphaned works, and "out of print" works 
-- two concepts that don't make sense in the modern digital age.


   What is needed is documentation on the lowering costs of having a 
digitally searchable database for registered works (Something radically 
different today than in the age of Berne), and the lower costs 
associated with a database recording works currently under copyright 
rather than the vast majority of human creativity that is not under 
copyright.




-- 
  Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
  Please help us tell the Canadian Parliament to protect our property
  rights as owners of Information Technology. Sign the petition!
  http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/

  "The government, lobbied by legacy copyright holders and hardware
   manufacturers, can pry my camcorder, computer, home theatre, or
   portable media player from my cold dead hands!"