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Unions and trade bodies pre-empt Digital Britain with call for government to safeguard creative jobs
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 11 June 2009
And that includes in the UK, where some in the content industries are frustrated that the government, while talking loudly about the need to stop the sharing of unlicensed content on the internet, is still resistant to any proposals as draconian as the three-strike disconnection system.
Though, that said, former Culture Minister Andy Burnham, just before he left the job last week, did admit that communications regulator OfCom might need the power to enforce “technical measures” against persistent file-sharers who ignore warnings that their file-sharing is infringing copyrights. Such measures may include restricting the bandwidth of infringers, and blocking their access to certain file-sharing websites. How that would work is unclear though, and the internet service providers continue to speak out against any new measures which would oblige them to take on a more proactive role in combating piracy, or, even worse, to cut off good paying customers.
Here in the UK, of course, all concerned parties are awaiting with interest for the final draft of the government’s ‘Digital Britain’ report which is expected to say something about combating internet piracy, though probably not really very much. It’s presumably the low expectations amongst content owners regarding what ‘Digital Britain’ will propose for combating piracy that persuaded no less than fifteen organisations to publish an open letter in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph calling on politicians to act decisively on this issue to, the letter says, safeguard jobs in the creative industries.
The Musicians Union and record label trade body the BPI were signatories of the letter, alongside their equivalents in the film and TV sectors, plus some anti-piracy bodies and other trade unions who represent people who work in the creative sector. A failure to tackle online piracy now, the letter claimed, would result in “fewer films, songs and TV programmes [being] commissioned”, and that would mean “job losses will be felt right across the chain, from production to distribution, from technicians to manufacturers and from logistics companies to staff in high street shops. ‘Digital Britain’ is Gordon Brown’s golden opportunity to tackle this growing threat and, at the 11th hour, to save the future of the UK creative industries”.
Explaining their support for the call to action, Brendan Barber, the General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress, told reporters: “There is no doubt among members of our unions, as well as the coalition of rights-holders who voice the consensus of the creative industries, that filesharing poses a serious but utterly avoidable threat to jobs. This is through films never made, tracks never recorded and content never invested in. ISPs hold the key to creating the step change necessary to tackle illegal filesharing. For the vast majority, simply drawing attention to the illegality of their actions would be sufficient, but this needs to be backed by further graduated technical measures for those who do not change their behaviour”.
