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Thank you, thank you very much.
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Hum, is this volume ok ? Can people hear me ?
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Thank you very much for the kind introduction
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and thank you also for inviting me to speak to you today
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This event is called "Sound copyright,
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which way for the E.U. ?"
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And I believe that's a very apt title.
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Because I feel that the E.U. and the parliament in particular
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is at a crossroad with this directive, the term extension directive,
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and I hope that through the course of this morning
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we will find the right way to go.
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On one side we have a story
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about the poor performer, the performer who had come to the end of his life
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and his copyright expires, he can no longer fund himself, he's in penury.
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We know this story.
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The European Commission put forward a piece of legislation to help him
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and it's one of a number of legislative initiatives being crafted by the Commission
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around copyright in the digital age.
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That's one side.
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On the other side, we have mounting unrest
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among ordinary citizens about this piece of legislation.
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I wonder if those in this room would like to indicate to me whether they have seen
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the video produced by the Open Rights group
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"How copyright terms extension really works"
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perhaps hands are only put up for voting in this institution
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but if you've seen it, please raise your hand.
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You are ones of twenty thousands people who have viewed that video
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and several people have translated it voluntarily
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into their native languages
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so that they could spread the word about concerns over this directive, further.
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Fifteen thousands European citizens have signed our position asking MEPs to reject this directive.
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And I'm reliably informed
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that telephones here in Brussels have been buzzing with constituents asking their representatives
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to attend this event and to vote against the extension of copyright term
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when it comes to plenary later this year.
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Could you give the web of that video ?
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I can... Well, if you go to soundcopyright.eu you'll find a link to it there.
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You'll be able to watch it from there.
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And I think the popularity of this event only goes to show
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how contentious this directive is.
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The question we're here to answer today is how should MEPs react ?
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Which signpost should they follow, and which way should they go ?
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Well, let's start with the fairy story.
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It centers on a poor performer who
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having played guitar on a track in the 1960's
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and having collected royalties on that track
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for nearly fifty years, is about to see those royalties cease and his copyright expires.
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This performer will as a consequence, we're told, become even poorer than he already his.
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He will loose his main source of income, we are told
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at the very time in his life, we are told, that he needs it most.
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As you will agree it is a simple story.
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And it looks simple enough for MEPs to give it a happy ending.
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But, like many simple stories
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it leaves a lot of open questions.
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What has this poor performer been doing for the last fifty years ?
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Has he remained a performer ?
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In which case will the royalties from his recent songs continue to deliver him an income ?
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Jimmy Page was considered young
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when he did his first session work for Decca Records in the early sixties.
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When his first performer copyright expires, he'll already be nearly seventy.
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Is our fairy tale performer, unlike Jimmy Page
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a poor performer because nobody bought his records, at the time
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in which case why would give him another forty five years for no one to buy his records
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make him any richer ?
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Or has he, like our former prime minister Tony Blair
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given up his dreams of rock star for another career ?
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and whether he was successful or not
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and whether he remained a performer or whether he chose a different path
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has he, like the rest of us, not put a proportion of his income aside during his working life
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in order that he might be able to provide for himself in his old age.
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Like "Jack and the Beanstalk"
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"Cinderella", "Rapunzel", and all the other famous fairy tales of Europe
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this story of the poor performer doesn't really stand up to scrutiny.
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So why are MEPs being told it ?
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Ladies and gentlemen, I put it to you that the reason you are being told fairy tales
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is because if you were being told the real story
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you would reject the term extension without questions.
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As you will hear from the various speakers that are addressing this group this morning
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all the evidence shows that the term extension directive will do very little
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almost nothing to help poor performers
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and everything to line the pockets of the world's four major record labels.
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I often wonder if we should call them the brothers Grim
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since they are the ones that have been telling you the fairy stories
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the average European performer will make as little as fifty cents
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fifty eurocents a year in additional income from sales associated with the term extension
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And if the session [...] fund the commission proposal
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does not get followed up by the administrative costs of the labels and collective societies they administrate
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because let's face it
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tracking down a violinist who worked for you fifty years ago
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will be a pretty time consuming and expensive experience
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that figure may rise to as much as twenty six euros per year.
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But I'm sure you'll all agree with me, that is no pension.
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Now that just sales revenue, what about revenues artists receive from broadcasters
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from levies on devices, or from licenses paid by hair dressers, public gyms, or restaurants ?
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In fact as the commission has been forced to admit
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after the Open Rights group pointed that to them
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these revenues streams are likely to decrease for living artists
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if the term extension directive goes ahead.
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Why ? Because the income that would otherwise be going to young artists
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at the begining of their careers
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will be going to the estates of dead performers.
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So who really benefits ?
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Not consumers
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the people I represent, they will be the ones ultimately paying for it
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to the tune of up to four hundred and eighty million pounds in the UK alone
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according to independent studies commissioned for the United States government.
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No, it will be the record labels. Our Brothers Grim.
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And because these benefits will only accrue to those record labels with large back catalogs
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it will be the World's four major record labels.
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And they will each gain, up to four million euros each year.
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Our speakers this morning will go into further details about the evidence
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evidences from all of Europe's major intellectual property research centers
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from the World's most lauded economists and from the coalface of the European music industry
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they will try to explain to you why Ben [Hugenhelf] an adviser to DG Internal Market on exactly this subject
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has himself suggested that the term extension directive is an deliberate attempt to mislead MEPs.
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What I'd like to focus on in the remainder of this talk is why you should care.
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Why you should care that this directive will do nothing to help performers
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and will line the pockets of global media giants
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at the expense of your voters
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You should care because European citizens don't like fairy tales
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more specifically, your voters don't like to think that their elected representatives
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make law on the basis of fairy tales
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and Europe's citizens are pretty angry about the term extension directive.
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I'd like to read you just a selection of the comments that have been left
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by pepole underneath our videos which like [...] url for earlier
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which incidentally was the eleventh most popular UK political video on YouTube last week
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and I remind you that last week was the week that Obama got inaugurated
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Here is just some of the comments
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"Charlie McCreevy has to go. The proposal of the Commission is a huge scandal!"
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another comment
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"The proposal smells of an industry in terminal decline catching at straws. It does nothing for struggling artists."
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"Its a pity the E.U. has fallen for it."
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A third comment
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"The public will be even surer if this passes, exactly who it is supposed to benefit."
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"That's largely why we don't care about respecting copyright anymore."
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That last quote bear some examining.
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At the moment in the UK alone, it is estimated that around 6 million citizens
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are infringing copyrights by engaging in illicit filesharing across P2P networks.
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Legislators, industry and consumer organizations
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have a big job ahead of them if they are going to change this
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and it's not just about making new laws.
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We have to make sure that the legal framework is something that ordinary citizens can understand
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and can understand why they need to respect it.
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Every European benefits from copyright
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when copyright allows and encourages musicians to make great music
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And that's what copyright does.
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By protecting artists from people profiting from their creativity without giving them anything back
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We encourage them to share their talents with the world.
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To inspire us, and to change us.
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But law that is based on fairy tales, that doesn't win anyone over
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except, perhaps, the Brothers Grim
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is not law that ordinary European citizens can respect.
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Passing the term extension directive will only diminish the average European respect for copyright law
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and that will make the real problems facing the copyright [a key] in the digital age worse.
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Far worse.
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Ladies and gentlemen, I put it to you that the term extension directive is not a charming prince on horseback
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rushing to the aid of poor performers...
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I put it to you that the term extension directive is a frog.
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It is a slimy, sleazy frog and it is a frog that lies
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and European citizens know it is a frog.
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And I put it to you further that you cannot kiss this frog
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with amendments, this frog directive with amendments and turn it into a prince.
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That's just another fairy tale.
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Copyrights give artists a tool, a tool to negotiate
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in the market place. But it doesn't change a market place full of sharks
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and it shouldn't be a poor instrument to give artists in order to protect their rights.
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There are far better things that the European parliament could be doing to protect performers.
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So please don't try and kiss this frog directive to turn it into a prince
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Please, for the sake of Europe's consumers, for the sake of the knowledge economy
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reject the fairy tales and reject the term extension directive, thank you very much.
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Thank you very much, Becky. I think we have, we have gotten right into the heat of the debate...
