Tuesday 23 March 2010

The Digital Economy Bill



In 36 hours, the UK leader of the commons, Harriet Harman, will decide whether to pass a bill into law un-scrutinised, or subject it to a line by line analysis, thereby delaying it until after the election (GB will soon head to the palace to dissolve the govt) or kill it completely.

This bill is the Digital Economy Bill, which has been creating a hash-tag storm across the world of all the work-shy people out there, otherwise known as "Twitterees". As we know from Nestles social media 'fail' a few days ago, its easy to generate a storm in the online world, all you need is a cause because people will always throw their weight behind something that requires no effort for them to support.

However, I just want to point out one thing that, was in fairness, pointed out to me by a photographer. In the digital design world, it's really easy to not see past your own nose, even into supporting fields, like illustration and photogrraphy. This I thought was surprising, then again it's not as designers are a self obsessed lot.

Its concerned with the 'Orphan works' clause, that refers to a photograph for which the copyright owner (the photographer) is unknown and cannot be traced. Publishers, can use that image and not pay royalties by claiming it as an orphan work with no traceable originator. In effect, It will open the floodgates for publishers to use images willy-nilly without payment to the photographer by claiming that they couldn't trace them. It also puts the onus on photographers to make sure their work isn't being ripped off.

Now compare this to the recording industry lobby groups on whose back this bill rides. Its main aim is to stop the supply, distribution and use of copyrighted material, mainly music and film titles in order to wrest back lost revenue from the pirates, or those that download, distribute and consume copyrighted material.

The contradiction is stark, even within the bill, to remove copyright protection for one group and ramp it up to pernicious levels for another. The only difference I see is that one group is represented by powerful rights holders and the other, is the creator of original work.

I actually plan to go down and protest

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