The EU Copyright Directive seems to be like the curate’s egg: parts of it are excellent, or at least well-intentioned. But can it be made to work?

As I wrote here recently, I attended a conference on the future of copyright. The context: the UK has decided to not adopt the EU Directive on copyright. There has been some controversy over its provisions. For instance, in order to host someone’s work, you will need a licence to do so, and pay for it.

The downside of that is, potentially, that small companies and individuals will not be able to afford to include in their blogs such things as video clips from YouTube or quotes from other written works. To be honest, I don’t know all the ins and outs of the Directive, but my understanding is that the licensing requirement is aimed at the likes of Google who, via YouTube, make tons of money off other people’s backs while the originator of the content receives little or nothing.

So, two things. One, I should imagine that, as with many other things, there will be some kind of threshold for having to comply with the licensing rule. Two, the corollary of the need for companies to pay a licence for the use of other people’s work is that those people will receive a royalty or commission in return.

There is more information, and perhaps more reliable information about the Directive on the Society of Author’s page about copyright.

Having attended the conference — which was excellent, by the way — I am less certain now about the efficacy of adopting the Directive, or something like it, than I was before. Why? Here are my reasons, in no particular order:

Firstly, complying with the Directive would be a nightmare apparently. No country has yet been able to implement it effectively.

Moreover, the EU has started consultations with stakeholders after the Directive has been enacted. That doesn’t seem like a very sensible way to go about bringing in a major piece of legislation.

Thirdly, how would authors and other creatives enforce their rights?

Nicola Solomon, Chief Exec of the Society of Authors, said that we already have a pretty good copyright framework in this country, so why mess with it? Jim Killock, Chief Exec of the Open Rights Group, suggests that perhaps the UK’s best option is to wait and see whether any other country can make the Directive work.

One last thing before I say a few words about the conference itself. In my naivety, I’d always assumed that the UK didn’t adopt the EU Directive because of some deeply thought-through understanding of the issues involved. However, according to Daniel Guthrie, Director General of the Alliance for Intellectual Property, posits that it was a purely political decision, and that we would have refused to enact any EU Directive. It just so happened that it was to do with copyright. I’m sure that’s correct.

The conference worked quite well on the whole. I found it disconcerting that I couldn’t see the names of the other participants in the chat, but it was easy enough to ask questions for the panellists. One of the speakers was, for me, difficult to understand because she spoke quickly and quietly. All the other speakers were excellent, though I’m disappointed that none of them had a child rushed in, as happened to Robert Kelly and Deborah Haynes, but we can’t have everything I suppose.

I hope you found this article useful and perhaps even interesting. I’m not an expert on copyright, much less the EU Directive, so please don’t take anything I’ve written here as the absolute truth. In any case, as with many things, there was disagreement between the panellists and speakers about whether the Directive was or was not a good thing.

Finally, full disclosure: I was given a complimentary place on the conference, by the Westminster Forum.

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