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Plácido Domingo urges governments to stand up for copyright
By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 12 June 2014
Your mate Plácido Domingo urged governments to stand up for copyright last night, speaking at a dinner for delegates of the International IP Enforcement Summit in London, staged by the UK’s Intellectual Property Office and the European Commission’s Office For Harmonisation In The Internal Market.
Speaking in his guise as Chairman of the record industry’s global trade group the IFPI, Domingo told dining delegates: “There is a view – mistaken in my opinion – that in the digital world copyright matters less than in the physical world. It is emphatically not so. In fact, copyright needs protecting as vigorously – if not more vigorously – on the internet”.
Honing in on the ongoing review of European copyright laws in Brussels, he went on: “Europe will this year have new Commissioners and a new Parliament. I urge them, in their review of copyright, to promote and protect copyright, not to weaken it. Please, do not allow artist and producers’ rights to be eroded. Rather, look at how they can be better enforced”.
And that will most likely involve the assistance of the big search engines, the IFPI would likely add, and while Domingo would never partake in any Google-bashing himself, he did allude to this element of the piracy battle, by saying: “We, in the creative world, cannot protect our rights alone. We need help from the bigger actors. The search engines, for example. When someone uses a search engine to find music, they should not be directed to illegal sources of music. This directly hurts artists and other creators”.
He concluded: “Enlightened governments will understand that strong, properly-enforced intellectual property rights lead to a rich culture and economic prosperity”.
