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Record labels push EU to tighten
digital copyrights
Music
companies will lobby the European Parliament to strengthen
protection against illegal digital copying, saying current
proposals have too many loopholes.
Representatives of the 15 European Union governments sent
a new copyright law to the parliament for approval today.
Industry groups say the definition of private copying is too
broad, permitting millions of perfect copies to be traded
or distributed free on the Internet. “Most people would
not dream of stealing a compact disc from their local record
store,” said Jim Corr, a member of the Irish rock band
The Corrs, at a press conference in July. “In the same
way, we don’t think it’s cool to go cyber-shoplifting.”
EU representatives have discussed tighter laws to stem digital
piracy for three years as copying technologies proliferate.
European music sales totaled $11.5 billion (13 billion euros)
in 1999, while the industry lost $1.2 billion through copying
on CDs, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic
Industry (IFPI).
Music companies want a common EU law on technologies such
as “digital watermarks”—codes that prevent
products from being copied more than a specified number of
times. The new law would allow companies to use such technology.
However, countries will be able to grant exceptions for libraries
or schools for educational and noncommercial uses.
Industry groups said that will create a patchwork of regulations,
making it difficult to do business in the EU. Consumer representatives,
however, say the rules could allow electronic equipment makers
and rights holders to make copying technically impossible,
even where the rules permit copy making. Manufacturers could
also unfairly force consumers to sign agreements restricting
them from copying downloaded material at all, they say. “In
the shift to the digital environment, we feel that there’s
a real pressure to inhibit any kind of private copying,”
said Ursula Pachl, legal adviser to the European Consumers
Association.
While the music industry has organized publicity events with
musicians such as Jean Michel Jarre, “unfortunately,
we don’t sing and dance — maybe that’s our
major problem.” Rock group The Offspring will release
its new single, Original Prankster, for free downloading on
the Internet.
It will later release the whole of its new album, supported
by a prize draw of $1 million for fans who download free tracks.
The band will also encode access information on its CDs for
a “super fan club” via its Web site. “We figure
that since we make our music available to everyone for free,
this will act as a special acknowledgment to our fans who
go to the trouble to buy our CD,” said singer Dexter
Holland in a press release issued by the band, which is under
contract to Sony’s Columbia Records Group.
Music industry representatives said freebies are only an option
for established bands. “The Offspring is big enough to
do that — we’d never be able to establish new acts
in that way,” said Frances Moore, a director of IFPI.
“It’s easy enough to call us dinosaurs, but the
recording industry is first and foremost in the business of
finding the artist and working with the artist to produce
the music.”
Software companies are also watching the proposal closely,
concerned that allowing local variations could endanger current
laws protecting software and databases. “If this directive
were to come out substantially different from what’s
already in other areas, you could see a push to change those
directives to make them consistent with this one,” said
Marie-Therese Huppertz, a corporate attorney for Microsoft.
The parliament will examine and possibly amend the proposal
before sending it back to governments for final approval,
probably next year, said the IFPI’s Moore.
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