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