Do not restrict our creative industries

The main battleground of the 2005 General Election was style not substance. While Michael Howard staked his claim on simplicity and brevity, the government used its manifesto to appear authoritative and at ease with the technicalities of policy.

This may explain how such a complicated issue as intellectual property (IP) managed to make it into Labour’s policy proposals: ‘We will modernise copyright and other forms of protection of intellectual property rights so that they are appropriate for the digital age. We will ensure content creators can protect their innovations in a digital age. Piracy is a growing threat and we will work with industry to protect against it.’

A major international conference in London this week hopes to take a step towards a more credible and robust IP regime. The Creative Economy Conference, organised by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and others, will explore the creative industries, threats and opportunities opened up by digital technology, and the most critical policy issues. But what will these be?

One thing we can be reasonably sure of is that enforcement will be a popular theme. Although it does little to endear them to the public, content industries have a habit of beginning any debate about IP on a note of paranoia. Creative industries are worth eight per cent of UK gross domestic product (GDP), but we are constantly forewarned that piracy threatens to wipe this out. Governments and industry must band together to uphold law and livelihood.

But this tone does not represent the most effective piece of public relations. Our creative industries make a marvellous contribution to our economy, but they can overstate the crisis that the internet poses.

The challenge is to focus on practical, productive activities first and foremost, while keeping alive the importance of policing existing IP rights. For instance, a host of new and more efficient publishing models are emerging that exploit the internet without imperilling the moral and financial rights of creators. Governments should recognise that these are precisely what the knowledge economy is all about, and nurture them.

A more forward-looking model of media literacy could also be developed. In the UK, the communications regulator, Ofcom, is responsible for the promotion of media
literacy to help individuals confidently consume and create in a digital age. This is a noble ambition that should be treated as a serious policy programme, but when it comes to IP, the agenda suddenly turns matronly. ‘Do not download illegally’ it admonishes. And so children are taught what they are not allowed to do, but this should be secondary to what they are empowered to do.

These are already important questions for the DTI, and they are right to be pursuing the constructive lines of enquiry.

Policy-makers are exploring whether there is anything more that can be done, in terms of model contracts or generic digital rights management solutions.
There is one final issue that ought to be on the table at the Creative Economy Conference, but that almost certainly will not be. This is the fate of open-access
culture and public domain. With copyright extensions likely to be driven through in the UK before too long, there is still too little space given to the interests of individuals, communities and – yes – businesses that exploit the internet in collaborative and productive ways. There are credible economic arguments for limiting the expansion of IP, not to mention the obvious cultural arguments for doing so.

This week’s conference should be a useful step towards a more effective and legitimate model of IP protection for the digital age. But it would be a shame if it were to lose sight of Europe’s longer-term goals of higher productivity and a thriving public culture.

William Davies is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research, where he is leading a project on ‘Intellectual Property and the Public Sphere’. See http://ippr.typepad.com