Hargreaves Review of IP
Simon Biggs
to do ;)
An interesting report which sets out its priorities (which are the
governments and industry) when it states "If the Review¹s recommendations
are followed, the result will be more innovation and more economic growth."
This is later affirmed by the comment "Throughout the Review, we have sought
to base our judgments on economic evidence and we advise Government to frame
its policy decisions on that basis". No mention here of creativity or
cultural value - but instead an instrumentalist view of why people want to
be (and should be) creative. This is deeply problematic. If the creative
drive is not factored in as a key determiner of value then other attempts to
facilitate value will be compromised. It can only be hoped that, as the
report is picked over and pulled apart, its sharp edges are blunted somewhat
and the psycho-social imperative of creativity is placed at the centre of
the debate. However, for reasons outlined below, I would suggest this is
unlikely to happen.
There is hopeful material in the report. The issue of "orphan" work is
constructively addressed. The call for clarification on "fair use" is
helpful. The consideration of appropriational and parodist use of IP is
addressed positively.
When the author states "We urge Government to ensure that in future, policy
on Intellectual Property issues is constructed on the basis of evidence,
rather than weight of lobbying" they are clearly sounding a warning about
the vested interests who would wish to, and have historically managed to,
persuade government to pursue policies that would be detrimental to the open
and free development of network technologies and their creative use. This
means the traditional music and book publishing industries as well as
corporations, such as News International (later in the report these groups
and companies are mentioned as contributing to the report's consultation
process). The report thus implicitly accepts that crowd-sourcing and peer to
peer cultural ecologies are here to stay, are symptomatic of the internet
itself, and that if we are to make the most of the opportunities then policy
needs to reflect that.
The biggest disappointment is that there is no mention of alternate models
for IP, such as Creative Commons licensing or the Copyleft General Public
License. It will be Business (with a capital "B") as normal. The proposed
Digital Copyright Exchange model will not facilitate individual artists,
communities, start-ups and SME's but continue to entrench larger corporate
interests. The document notes that both small and large companies will be
able to profit under the proposed model but it sounds a bit like the
football transfer market, with non-Premiership teams surviving off the
transfer fees of their property (the players) to the big clubs. This process
only functions to sustain the dominance of the current big teams. It does
not encourage a level playing field and will please the vested interests.
Worryingly, the report proposes that "the UK can aspire to be the leading
service support centre for IP matters in the European time zone." What this
implies is the creation of a market in IP where the value and ownership of
IP is set by a market mechanism that sounds awfully like a stock or
commodities market. The wide-boys of the City will take control of who owns
what and at what price. Value will not be invested in the transformative
potential of the IP but in the excess value generated through speculation,
to the cost of everyone else. This represents a total corruption of
creativity and its outcomes and for this reason alone the report is
terrifying in its implications.
Best
Simon
Simon Biggs
si...@littlepig.org.uk
http://www.littlepig.org.uk/
s.b...@eca.ac.uk
http://www.elmcip.net/
http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/