As part of the Digital Britain report Lord Carter proposes a Digital Rights Agency to resolve copyright issues faced by the creative industries. Is this the right approach?
Copyright industries as soft power in a nation and play an important role in economic development and foreign trade. In recent years, the activities of international media and information industry mergers around copyright and other intellectual property rights have becoming frequently. The copyright industries have become important economic sectors in many western countries, formed many mature methods of operation in the copyright trade and accumulated rich experience.
In this essay, I will discuss what the present situation about British copyright industry is, and why we need copyright agency. Furthermore, I will present how to expand the scale of copyright agent. Moreover, I will state dissenting voices, before giving a brief conclusion.
Copyright industry refers to the copyright in the works or the adjacent right to the products as the basis of production and management, and legal systems to domestic and foreign copyright industries as a means of protecting and promoting the development of new types of industries. Knowledge, information and technological achievements of the production, dissemination and use are the core content for copyright industries.
At present, the western countries have the main forms of copyright trade are as follows: the right to transfer the work, that is, the media or the author allows other country’s media organizations or individuals translated works into other languages and charged copyright transfer fee; the mutual adaptation of television and the publications; the right to allow operators to use the image of people or animals in their products, its products are mainly toys, food, stationery, apparel, cartoon picture , accessories, travel souvenirs and so on.
In addition, the paperback book publishing industry copyright transactions, that is, the publishers launched best-selling hardcover books to the market, for sale to a certain time (for a year or so), then a paperback book out of copyright transferred to domestic publishers. Besides, multi-media rights, digital photocopy right, the initials right, book club rights are important aspect of copyright trade in western countries.
Why we need copyright agency?
Britain has formed a set of mature and professional method of operation in the long-term practice of copyright trade, reflected in the whole process of operation of the copyright trade.
According to Soulxtc (2009), David Lammy, Minister of State for Intellectual Property, writes: “A properly worked out rights agency could be a real step forward. We can’t have a system where even net-surfing 12 year olds have to understand copyright in order to keep themselves and their parents’ safe within the law. The real prize here is a rights agency that sorts out the complexities that keep consumers on the right side of the law, and ensure artists get properly paid. We need to make it easier for consumers to do the right thing. The internet has become an integral part of daily life. You shouldn’t need to be an underwriter to take out an insurance policy, and you shouldn’t need legal training to surf the web. At least he understands that copyright laws are overly complex, products of a bygone era that proceeded today’s digital age.”
When the time for the output of copyright by the copyright agency, the first choice would be a potential copyrighted content of products, and then would be the audience-depth analysis of cultural psychology, consumer interest and the characteristics of their social states, as well as the contents of product, style and other factors.
Secondly, the market research will be carried out before the formal copyright trade in order to clear the object of copyright transactions, the scope and timing. Market research including market demand, the impact of the macro-political and economic environment, the target audience of consumer demand and the tendency of the advantages of competitors, market position, as well as the potential buyers to purchase the copyright and so on. Earl M. stated that, take JAMCOPY as an example, the Jamaican Copyright Licensing Agency (JAMCOPY) has signed agreements with two educational institutions as part of a bid to protect the copyright (and income) of authors and publishers, locally and internationally. “The license allows you to use the copies within specified limits from any of these publications that we represent. It sets out the terms, the time, how much you pay,” explained Carol Newman, general manager of JAMCOPY, at this week’s Gleaner Editors’ Forum, which focused on copyright issues.
Thirdly, the copyright agency has taken a variety of marketing methods to promote the content in the products of copyright. To take the publishing industry as an example, in the past, publishers used to advertise in the media industry, will be added to their own publications in a variety of titles and taken the initiative to the copyright agency or foreign publishers to post titles, as well as participate in various international fair. The general cost of publishing propaganda was 5-10% of its production, sometimes the prices accounted for 80% of first edition of the textbook, or even equivalent to the price of the first edition. Use of the Internet and other multi-media marketing to start the copyright campaign as well as the means of some foreign media organizations commonly used. A number of online copyright trade organizations, used their advanced technology, rich database copyright to provide a fast and efficient platform.
In addition, in the process of negotiations about copyright, the copyright agency is usually able to act in strict accordance with the rules, the terms of the contract signed by the copyright and meticulous detail. After an agreement is reached, most of them can strictly enforce the contract with a strong awareness of the law.
Besides, the media organization is also very professional of the internal management of copyright transactions. Under normal circumstances, copyright trade sector will be filed for each copyright trade records, to be centrally managed so that future queries of the sale of copyright can be quickly. Media organizations will also be applied the customer relationship management technology to transaction management of copyright in order to ensure the effective interaction between enterprise and customers. According to Journalonline, take copyright agency in Glasgow crackdown as an example, The Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) is to target professional businesses across Glasgow in a clampdown on illegal photocopying without a license. CLA, formed in 1982, is a non profit-making company which protects the copyright interests of over 60,000 authors and 1,200 publishers in the UK. “We believe a number of large Glasgow-based accountants and lawyers are deliberately flouting copyright law. We know who they are, and we’ll be knocking on their doors to point out they need a license for what they are doing”, said the CLA’s Licensing Manager in Scotland, Jim MacNeilage.
At present in Europe and the U.S. media and information industry, the most hot topic is digital rights management, publishing and professional publishers, is particularly concerned about this topic. Digital rights management is a description, identification and protection of digital content technology. Some professional publishers from Europe and the United States believe that the digital rights management revolution which has currently occurred in the music and film industry will affect the whole area of publishing.
How to expand the scale of copyright agent?
The field of copyright trade has a wide range of skills requirements: for the licensor, is the creativity and marketing skills; for the licensee, is the evaluation and selection skill of suitable topics for their own markets and projects. Whether the seller or the buyer, are required to have a high level of organization and efficiency of the system, they record a large-scale copyright trade.
A high level of organization and efficient system provide effective support for western countries to carry out copyright trade industry. On the one hand, in the design of media organization, the media companies in the Western countries generally have a specific copyright sector as long as they reach a certain size. On the other hand, Western countries have highly developed copyright trade, copyright agency as an important link in the chain of the copyright industry trade has been the scale of development. The United States has more than 600 copyright agencies as well as the United Kingdom has more than 200. Such as CAL (figure 1), is an Australian copyright management company whose role is to provide a bridge between creators and users of copyright material. Because the agents are familiar with copyright trading market, operational procedures and the mature standardized methods, copyright trade in western countries are mostly carried out through agents.
Figure 1
(CAL 2009)
The prosperity and development of copyright trade in western countries can not be separated from a number of highly qualified professionals. The professionals generally have higher quality to engage in copyright trade, they not only have good professional knowledge, rich reserves of knowledge, but also a wide range of social relationship and a strong capacity and skills of public activities.
Someone pointed out, the staff who engaged in copyright sales should have the following qualities: the discriminability of sales potential of each item; accumulated the specific information of items; to enhance and maintain knowledge of foreign markets; enthusiasm and sales skills are the essence for copyright; excellent interpersonal communication ability; familiar with the production, dissemination of business processes; have excellent computing skills; can deal with a different set of negotiations; to sign a consensus, clear and accurate licensing contract; excellent memory and ability to co-ordinate arrangements for the workload. Of course, it is very difficult to ask for a sales staff has the quality of this series at the same time. The point of view is an ideal framework for copyright trade.
Copyright industries can not develop without the right soil. Therefore, if the copyright economy wants to obtain the healthy development, first of all the government departments at all levels need to create a good environment and sound macro-industry policies and regulations of the system.
First of all, to carry out copyright trade institutions require in-depth understanding of target markets. Secondly, there should be a high standard of copyright trade planning and establish an international perspective, for each selection, product planning need to focus on the world market, operating in the world arena. Many foreign organizations adopt this business model.
Network as a new force in the copyright trade has shown its unique charm. At this stage we can register in the international copyright and other online website to have more copyright trade business through the network.
Another voice of the establishment of copyright agent
However, as Dinah G. (2009) pointed out, “Consumer Focus said it believed the Government should abandon plans to create such a body and focus its efforts instead on copyright violations perpetrated by organized crime. If implemented, the Government’s proposals for a digital rights agency would see an industry-run body set up to enforce copyright law. Consumer Focus said this will have a significant impact on the UK economy and society for generations to come.”
“The consumer rights watchdog said by giving stakeholders just 10 working days in which to respond to proposals for a digital rights agency laid out in the Copyright in the Digital World open consultation, any responses the Government received would be rushed and ad hoc.”
Even so, copyright agent still plays a vital role to carry out copyright trade. I believe that through the development of relevant laws and regulations, policies and industry norms, it is a vigorous support of our copyright industry.
Reference:
CAL (2009) figure 1 [online] available from http://www.copyright.com.au/ [15th April 2009]
Dinah G., (2009) Consumer Focus slams Government plans for copyright agency, [online] Available from <http://www.computeractive.co.uk/computeractive/news/2239808/consumer-focus-criticises>
Earl M., (2006) Copyright agency gets tough, [online] Available from <http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20060609/lead/lead6.html>
Journalonline, (2005) Copyright agency in Glasgow crackdown, [online] Available from <http://www.journalonline.co.uk/News/1002565.aspx>
Soulxtc, (2009) UK Govt Asks for Input on Proposed Copyright Agency, [online] Available from <http://www.zeropaid.com/news/10052/uk_govt_asks_for_input_on_proposed_copyright_agency/>
