Is copy-right obsolete?
At the World Forum on Music in Beijing Martin Kretschmer, director of the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy & Management of Bournemouth University, UK presented his study about the earnings of musical artists. He said that there is not much data available on artist’s income and that it would be helpful to have a better and statistically comparable income basis. But what his research showed so far was that artists earn way less then the average citizen and that the top 10% of composers and songwriters account for almost 90% of the total earnings of the profession. A very important statement Kretschmer made on copyright income: “It is often claimed that copyright does ensure income for artists, but that’s plain nonsense.”, Kretschmer made clear. For composers, earnings from copyright royalties account on average for less than a quarter of creative income, for musicians, for about 1%. Copyright law in its current form is a weak and skewed regulatory mechanism for awarding authors and artists, says Kretschmer.
Danny O’Brien from the Electronic Frontier Foundation explained at the Intellectual Property Rights session at WFM what copying means in the digital age. If you want to take a song that is stored on your computer with you on the train, for example, you have to copy it to your mp3-player - instead of putting a CD or tape in your pocket as in former days. And what when your computer copies songs onto the RAM? Is this an illegal copy then? Danny O’Brien made it clear that copy right as it was meant could be obsolete.
Ahti Vänttinen from the International Federation of Musicians said that it is important to seek balance between wide and equal access to music on one hand, and on the other hand the financial compensation for those whose livelihood depends on music. In his speech he talked about the problems of compensation nowadays and that it is necessary to face reality of file sharing and digital music usage. And he closed: “Personally, I don’t think the IP system is broken, but it might need some maintenance from time to time.”
photo by mutednarayan on Flickr under Creative Commons by-sa
