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Dear MP
Westminster Hall debate: Intellectual property and its contribution to economicgrowth
Next Tuesday, 9:30 to 11, a Westminster Hall debate will take place on the contribution of intellectual property, including copyright, patents and design, to economic growth. Thedebate has been moved by Pete Wishart MP and comes as the Intellectual Property Office(IPO) is consulting on implementing the Hargreaves Review of IP and Growth.The Government recognises the importance of IP in supporting businesses in monetisinginnovation and the importance of copyright in particular in providing the basis for wellfunctioning and competitive markets. To this end the Hargreaves Review sought to identifyareas where copyright law and licensing could be streamlined and updated to ensure itsupports growth and innovation to the full extent possible.The economic impact assessment for the review estimates that implementing Prof Hargreaves recommendations would add between 0.3 per cent and 0.6 per cent to annualGDP growth. One of the most significant recommendations by the Hargreaves Review wasthat copyright policy should be based on economic evidence. Despite copyright laweffectively regulating the production, trade and consumption of copyrighted content, changesto copyright law have thus far not been based on economic evidence. As part of theconsultation to implement the Hargreaves Review, the IPO has established detailed impactassessments for each of the recommendations, which can be foundonline. The IPO is nowseeking further economic evidence as part of the consultation to ensure that decisions toupdate copyright law are based on best available evidence and the impacts on variousstakeholders are understood.
Making copyright licensing fit for the digital age
The 2006 Gowers Review of IP only mentioned copyright licensing fleetingly, which webelieve was a significant failure. Less than a year after the publication of Gowers an IPOreview of the Copyright Tribunal found that the importance of collecting societies, andcopyright licensing more generally, to the economy had increased as µthe means to copy anddiffuse copyright material grew¶. Without effective copyright licensing, through directnegotiations with the copyright owners or blanket licences by collecting societies, businessesare not able to deliver innovative products and services to consumers. In order to ensurethat consumer demand is met in a timely manner through legal services, copyright licensingis absolutely essential. Therefore Consumer Focus welcomes Prof Hargreaves¶ emphasis onthe need to enhance the effectiveness of copyright licensing in the UK.With a view to removing barriers to economic growth, Prof Hargreaves considered copyrightlicensing in some detail. The three most significant recommendations designed to optimisecopyright licensing for the digital age are:
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igital Copyright Exchange:
Prof Hargreaves recognised that obtaining copyrightlicences can be difficult and time-consuming. Numerous responses to the Review¶sCall for Evidence drew attention to defects in licensing procedures, among themthose from the CBI, News Corporation, Pearson, Reed Elsevier, an alliance of UKphotographers and the European Publishers Council. Prof Hargreaves recommendedthat the Government should bring together copyright owners and other businessinterests to establish the world¶s first Digital Copyright Exchange. The exchange isenvisaged as interoperable databases, making it easier for copyright owners,whether small or large, to sell licences to their work and for others to buy them. As
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