How did we get to a place where the debate on copying copyrighted materials is seen primarily from an owner’s infringement viewpoint? How did we get to a place where our ability to preserve our history and freedom of speech are actually at risk from intellectual property laws? In the latest round of copyright attrocities: Britain’s Sound Archives are finding that they are “facing the loss of a significant portion of its music collection due to stringent copyright laws and obsolete recording formats.” They have recordings that are decaying but the current laws do not allow copying for preservation. This has major implications for our ability to pass on our culture to future generations. It is ironic how a few years ago people were talking about being overloaded with information because everything was theoretically preservable, yet now we face the greatest losses of cultural works in history*, much due to intellectual property laws that were created (originally) to encourage the preservation and creation of works.

British music archive faces copyright risk

The British Library has been unable to begin transferring audio from obsolete formats to modern digital recordings because of prevailing copyright laws and that could ultimately end access to a portion of the archive`s collected recordings, the BBC reported. ‘Currently the law does not permit copying of sound and film items for preservation,’ said the British Library. ‘Without the right to make copies, the UK is losing a large part of its recorded culture.’

An article by ZDNet UK explores specifically the dangers of DRM raised by the British Library which, according to Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the British Library, “can impose restrictions on copying content that go beyond the requirements of copyright law” and “can’t be circumvented for disabled access or preservation, and the technology doesn’t expire (as traditional copyright does).” Suw Charman, executive director of the Open Rights Group, talked about the dangers of DRM to academic research:

“If we allow companies to create their own licenses, we undermine copyright law. If we say contract law is more important than copyright law, it allows publishers to write whatever license they like, which is what is happening now.”

In the ZDNet UK article, British Library also raised the problem of orphaned works, “There’s an enormous amount of material locked up because we can’t trace the copyright holders.” Which reminded me of the old US system of copyright law where you couldn’t get protection without registering with the national library actually had some value in that you could at least trace the copyright owners to ask their permission to use the work. I was once at a conference where James Boyle, a legal professor at Duke University (and the coolest legal academic ever) suggested an elegant system. All works were protected automatically for a set number of years, say 25, and then after that period, you could register your copyright for $1 to have another 25 or 100 or whatever years, if you don’t then it falls into public domain. His argument was that most of the lobbying for tightening up copyright laws are really due to a very small percentage of high earning works, but this is what is “locking up” all the other works which nobody wants and is not being saved because no one can find the original copyright owners.

*If only because we are creating the greatest numbers of cultural works in history.

[Edit: Boing Boing picked up the story: here is the Boing Boing story, Link to Counterpoint guide to Creative Commons IP rethink and Link to British Library report (pdf)]

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