I haven't seen the full thing yet, but they're releasing some of the ancilliary reports:
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/gowers_review_intellectual_property/gowersreview_index.cfm The one on copyright extension for audio works is available, which I'm guessing is what people got an early peek at. The economic analysis of the copyright system looks particularly rigorous, on both the part of the report writers and PriceWaterhouseCoopers, who did a report for the BPI. Telling is this quote, pp32: "Thus, according to the PwC report, retrospective term extensions will deliver a maximum 1.9% increase in the present value of revenue from existing recordings" So much for Cliff Richard's pension plan - 2% is a modest increase in anyone's language. They also estimate the prospective increase in revenue due to term extension to be less than 1%! The reciprocity argument ("we should do the same as others") is also shot down: "[The US and Australia are our main markets, and copyright is already extended their - our actions will make not difference in those cases] "Only India, Honduras and Guatemala apply 'comparison of terms' and if we (generously) assume that British recordings account for half the international repertoire, the trade benefit from an increase in the copyright term is unlikely to be substantial (some portion of $17 million)." And finally, cost to the consumer: "Taking the upper bounds for producer gains determined in previous sections, this implies consumer costs of between 240 and 480 million pounds from retrospective term extensions." Having only briefly read this, it does seem to be a stunning critique on the general arguments for extension of intellectual property. Cheers, Alex. _______________________________________________ Fsfe-uk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-uk
