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Lammy speaks on moral rights
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 24 March 2010
The government’s only slightly tedious Intellectual Property Minister, David Lammy, yesterday led that previously reported debate on moral rights, ie the rights creators have over their works even once they’ve flogged them off to a publisher, studio, label or equity firm in return for a big bag of cash and as much cocaine as any one nose could ever need.
Moral rights under English copyright law are rather limited, although were extended to cover recording artists as well as songwriters a few years back. Lammy wants political types to reconsider the way moral rights work, and to consider how such rights are handled elsewhere in the world, and whether we can learn anything from other countries that might be used to hone the moral rights system here.
In his speech to a room full of industry, creative and political types, Lammy said: “In the current debate on the future of copyright, we must not lose sight of creators and artists – the lifeblood of our vibrant culture and of our creative industries. And we should not underestimate their contribution to our national wealth – the creative industries account for around 6.4 per cent of our economy. Copyright isn’t just about making money from creative works, important though that is to many people. It is also about deeper issues of creativity, identity and control”.
Noting how the rather controversial Digital Economy Bill was dealing with the economic side of copyright, he continued: “I believe that the other side of copyright – the moral side – is just as important. Any artist puts not just effort into their work, but a bit of themselves. It may be a unique work of art sold to Charles Saatchi for six figures or a book selling millions of copies in dozens of languages. There is a powerful sense in which it still remains theirs”.
Reviewing the two moral rights that exist under English law – the right to a credit and the right to your work not being horrifically fucked around with (those are possibly not the words the Copyright Act uses) – Lammy expressed concerns that artists are still able to waive these rights under the current system (the fear is some may be pressured to do so by dodgy types), and then asked whether our approach to the whole moral rights thing could be developed by looking at how such things are handled elsewhere.
He continued: “We are part of a global civilisation, and share our culture and content internationally. And other nations take very different views on moral rights – different not just from the UK but also from each other. There is a vast gulf between US and French approaches, for example. Can it be bridged? What can we learn from our neighbours and our friends? And what might they learn from us? I am grateful to the Strategic Advisory Board For IP Policy’s panel of academic experts for coming to give us a sense of the moral rights picture in other countries”.
If all this is getting you all kinds of excited, a video recording of Lammy’s speech is online on SABIP’s YouTube channel here. Though don’t go and download this, remove all the credits, and then mess around so that the integrity of the original speech is lost. Remember Dave’s moral rights, OK?
