Alongside the Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec), BCS—The Chartered Institute for IT and TechHub, BIMA believes that the Review, which was published by Professor Ian Hargreaves in May, represents a milestone for the UK digital economy. It recognises—as many digital businesses and entrepreneurs have known for a long time—that the nation’s intellectual property laws, and in particular copyright law, must adapt to change.

Today the Government came down firmly in support of the Review and committed to implement its recommendations as soon as practicable. The undersigned organisations welcome in particular the Government’s commitment to:

Expand the range of copyright exceptions to include private copying (format-shifting), library archiving, non-commercial research and parody, and ensure that the exceptions cannot be overridden by contract. These exceptions will both bring the law into line with practice and permit wider uses of copyrighted materials without undermining the purpose of copyright.

Pursue at EU level an exception for text- and data-mining for commercial research, including especially medical and scientific research. Opening text- and data-mining to the widest range of innovative thinkers will be one of the most effective tools in promoting scientific progress in the 21st century and is sure to lead to many vital medical and scientific discoveries.

Create an orphan works scheme, and pursue extended collective licensing proposals. Too much of what society has created is locked away because its creators cannot be found, and these schemes have the potential to open up important works for public consumption.

Allocate copyright enforcement resources to the most serious problems, including especially organised criminal activities. This commitment implicitly acknowledges that there is a difference between the incidental and inadvertent forms of copyright infringement that are realities of Internet use and do little harm to creators, on the one hand, and the more malicious, widespread behaviour that actually undermines the incentives copyright is intended to create, on the other.

Give the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) expanded resources and powers, in particular to issue copyright opinions. The pace of technological change means that future-proofing copyright law is essential, and the IPO is in the best position to monitor developments and bring forward modifications as needed.

Assist with the creation of a Digital Copyright Exchange, and in particular ensure that rights holders are incentivised to participate in it. The success of a DCE will depend on having near-universal participation, and while compulsory participation would not comply with international law, a strong system of incentives will give the DCE a chance of being the revolutionary tool it is intended to be.

Jeff Lynn, Chairman of Coadec, said: Those of us who believe that the future of Britain’s economy depends largely on the digital innovations occurring among the Silicon Roundabout community and throughout the country are very happy with the Government’s response to the Hargreaves recommendations. We applaud strongly the commitment to making these pivotally important changes a reality, and we look forward to working with the Government on the detail of each of the forthcoming proposals and consultations.

Dear Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Chancellor and Ministers

Urgent Need to Implement the Hargreaves IP Recommendations

The undersigned organisations represent the future of Britain’s digital economy. Our members and supporters are the entrepreneurs, startups, SMEs, professionals and agencies that are working tirelessly to make the United Kingdom the world leader in digital innovation and to create wealth and jobs for the British people.

We have been delighted by the consistent rhetoric of this Government highlighting how crucial Britain’s digital economy is to the country’s future, and we agree wholeheartedly that the sector must play a vital role in supporting the country’s recovery. It is now time for the Government’s fine words to be put into meaningful action if the sector is to flourish and play its role in helping to drive economic growth in the United Kingdom.

We are writing today to express our strongly held view that the Government must move forward with the swift and fulsome implementation of the recommendations of the Independent Review of IP and Growth, chaired by Professor Ian Hargreaves, for changes to Britain’s copyright law framework.

Our organisations believe that the Hargreaves report represents a watershed for this country’s digital economy. The report recognises—as many digital businesses and entrepreneurs have known for a long time—that the nation’s intellectual property laws, and in particular copyright law, must adapt to business, social and technological change.

As Professor Hargreaves says, “Laws designed more than three centuries ago with the express purpose of creating economic incentives for innovation by protecting creators’ rights are today obstructing innovation and economic growth.”

The recommendations set forth in the report would, if implemented, go a long way toward righting that imbalance. The recommendations have received strong support from leaders of the Internet economy, and at the recent e-G8 meeting in Paris, they were cited as best practice for copyright law in the digital age.

Innovation and commercialisation by digital businesses is a key component of Britain’s economy and will play an ever-more important role in years to come. In the interest of ensuring that Britain has a dynamic, world-leading digital economy, it is essential that the Government heed the Hargreaves report closely and implement its recommendations thoroughly.

Certain of the recommendations can be implemented by Act of Parliament or statutory instrument, and we call on the Government to draft and introduce the necessary legislation as soon as possible. These recommendations, which we refer to as the “straightforward recommendations”, include:

Adopting exceptions to copyright for format-shifting, parody, non-commercial research and library archiving
Prohibiting copyright exceptions from being overridden by contract
Enabling licensing of orphan works
Giving the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) the power to issue statutory opinions to help clarify copyright law and take other measures to help ensure that Britain’s IP system remains focused on promoting innovation and growth
Causing the IPO to improve the accessibility of the IP system to smaller companies

As you will appreciate, implementation of some of Professor Hargreaves’s other recommendations will be more complicated, either because they require EU involvement or because they are non-legislative measures. These “complex recommendations” include:

Promoting at EU level copyright exceptions for text and data analytics
Promoting the inclusion in the EU framework of a mechanism for adapting copyright exceptions to new technologies as they arise
Supporting moves by the European Commission for establishing a cross-border copyright licensing framework
Facilitating the creation of a comprehensive ‘Digital Copyright Exchange’ through which works can be licensed in a transparent and simple manner
While we believe that it is imperative that the Government begin the necessary processes for implementing the complex recommendations as soon as possible, it must do so without slowing the implementation of the straightforward ones.

We therefore call on the Government to:

Put the straightforward recommendations on a fast track and ensure that they become part of law quickly—preferably before the end of the year, and in no event later than the end of the 2011-2012 Parliamentary session; and Work diligently at EU level and with relevant stakeholders to make the complex recommendations a reality in the shortest timeframe possible.
We would welcome the opportunity to elaborate on our views at any point, either through further communications or in a meeting with you or your officials. Please contact us through The Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec), at committee@coadec.com or 020 8528 1444.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

The Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec)
Jeff Lynn, Chairman

BCS-The Chartered Institute for IT
Ian Ryder, Deputy Chief Executive

TechHub
Elizabeth Varley, CEO and Co-Founder

British Interactive Media Association (BIMA)
Justin Cooke, Chairman

Bootlaw
Barry Vitou and Danvers Baillieu, Founders

We have a fantastic line-up of panellists for the evening, including:

• Tim Bradshaw (Digital Media Correspondent, Financial Times)
• Rt. Hon. David Davis MP (Conservative MP)
• Julian Huppert MP (Liberal Democrat MP)
• Sean Seton-Rogers (General Partner, PROfounders Capital)
• Milo Yiannopolous (Technology Columnist, The Telegraph)
• Mike Butcher (Editor, TechCrunch Europe), Moderator

The event will run from 18.30 to 21.30 at TechHub, 76-80 City Road, London EC1Y 2BJ. The panel will begin at 19.30 sharp, and drinks and food will be served before and after.

Coadec is grateful to our sponsors for the evening:

Psonar is a social music community letting people access their music, wherever they are, and explore other people’s music. It lets people put music at the heart of their social interractions and empowers artists to engage directly with their fans.

Capital SCF is a technology-focused independent corporate finance boutique headquartered in London.  It provides high quality, independent advice to the senior management teams and boards of the European technology industry’s innovative incumbent and disruptor companies on strategic matters critical to their growth and success.  Capital SCF’s directors combine a broad network of global relationships with deep sector knowledge and specialist M&A experience to deliver a superior, senior level of service for clients who value experience, judgment, insight and innovative thinking.  In addition to mergers & acquisitions advice, Capital SCF leverages its team’s extensive corporate finance and capital markets experience to advise companies on capital structure and capital raising choices, selectively raising private capital for clients.

At the moment, Coadec’s main focus is the Digital Economy Act, which was rushed through Parliament in the final days of the last government. For those unfamiliar with the Act, the main problems it raises include:

Arbitrary disconnection. If a copyright owner believes that its rights are being infringed by a user at a certain IP address, the owner can write a warning letter to the relevant ISP, which then must pass the warning on to the user. If a few warnings go to the same user, the ISP can be obligated to cut off the user’s access. At no point in this process is the copyright owner required to prove infringement: the user is presumed guilty until he or she shoulders the burden of going through a potentially expensive and time-consuming appeals process.

Reduction in public wi-fi. A by-product of the disconnection provisions is that it will be nearly impossible for small businesses, community institutions and others to offer public wi-fi. Anytime someone browsing the web at a café is accused of infringing a copyright, it will be the café that gets the warning letter, and soon enough their wi-fi will get disconnected.

Website blocking. A separate provision allows the government to block websites that are likely to be used in connection with any activity that infringes copyright. In practice, this means that anyone who maintains a website that allows user-generated content to be posted runs the risk of having the website shutdown if it turns out that even a relatively small portion of that content infringes a copyright. There is also the risk that web locker and infrastructure as a service platforms may be blocked for their entire user base because of a small quantity of infringing content.

If you’re a business or an entrepreneur working in digital media to create the next big thing, and you find that (1) your Internet connection is randomly cut off because you may (or may not) have viewed some copyright-infringing material, (2) you can no longer access public wi-fi and (3) even if you could get Internet access you can’t allow user-generated content on your website and the SaaS apps that you run stop working as the underlying infrastructure gets shut down, you’re going to have a pretty big problem, assuming you want to stay in Britain. In turn, Britain is going to have a pretty big problem if the people who would be the key drivers of the digital economy—which by all accounts will be one of the main sources for growth and job creation in the coming years—are forced to choose between ceasing innovation or moving abroad.

There is still hope that the worst effects of the Act may not come to pass, and Coadec is working within both the political and regulatory processes to push for repeal or amendment and for sensible implementation of the parts of the Act that remain on the books. We’ll let you know more about our involvement in the process and how you can help shortly. In the meantime, if you’d like to support our work and follow more closely what we’re up to, please sign up to our Supporters List, follow us on Twitter (@Coadec) and visit our blog.

We’re very excited about working with BIMA, and if you have any questions or thoughts, please feel free to e-mail us anytime at committee AT coadec.com.

Coadec is made up of a wide range of members of the UK innovation community, including entrepreneurs, leaders of tech-driven startups and SMEs, inventors and developers, writers and journalists, and many others who believe that the future of Britain lies in the success of its digital economy.

Coalition for a Digital Economy

Coadec’s current primary focus is pushing for amendments to, and sensible implementation of, the copyright infringement provisions of the Digital Economy Act 2010.  Coadec welcomes suggestions for other policy areas in which our input and action can benefit the digital economy.

“Through this partnership, we will be able reach out to BIMA’s members and supporters to give them a voice on political and legislative issues that affect the digital economy (such as the Digital Economy Act) said Coadec Chairman Jeff Lynn.

“We look forward to working alongside Coadec and supporting each other’s initiatives and will announce more details about our collaboration in the near future” commented BIMA Chair Justin Cooke.
To support Coadec please join their Supporters List, follow them on Twitter (@Coadec) and join their Facebook group.