Category / Law

Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission (Digital Agenda), reads BU research, but…

Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda, made her annual set piece speech at the Media Forum in Avignon, France on 19 November: Who feeds the artist?

Speaking of economic reward: if that is the aim of our current copyright system, we’re failing here too. [then follows a paragraph summarising the BU studies in the area, but without reference] 1000 euros a month is not much to live off. Often less than the minimum wage. But most artists, and not only the young ones at the early stages of their career, have to do so. Half the fine artists in the UK, half the “professional” authors in Germany, and, I am told, an incredible 97.5% of one of the biggest collecting society’s members in Europe, receive less than that paltry payment of 1000 euros a month for their copyright works. Of course, the best-paid in this sector earn a lot, and well done to them. But at the bottom of the pyramid are a whole mass of people who need independent means or a second job just to survive.

[before indicating a change in policy direction] Let’s not wait for a financial crisis in the creative sector to happen to finally adopt the right tools to tackle it.

—

The data is clearly from:

AUTHORS’ EARNINGS FROM COPYRIGHT AND NON-COPYRIGHT SOURCES: A SURVEY OF 25,000 BRITISH AND GERMAN WRITERS (ALCS Study 2007) http://www.cippm.org.uk/alcs_study.html

COPYRIGHT CONTRACTS AND EARNINGS OF VISUAL CREATORS: A SURVEY OF 5,800 BRITISH DESIGNERS, FINE ARTISTS, ILLUSTRATORS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS (DACS Study 2011) http://www.cippm.org.uk/publications/dacs-report.html

A possible source is my contribution to a Hearing in the European Parliament last June. http://www.cippm.org.uk/news/2011/jun/ne001-future-of-copyright-in-the-digital-era.html

So there is a challenge… I could blog: “European Commission Vice-President reads BU research”.

But no source is cited. Did our studies matter? Is there a causal link to a change in the direction of copyright policy?

In REF terms, was there Impact of research?

Howard Davis publishes in the highly rated journal – Public Law

Dr Howard Davis, from the Law Department in the Business School, has a piece coming out in Public Law (A* in the Excellence Research Australia journal ranking list) on the right to an open hearing in the context of mental health law. Courts and tribunals dealing with the affairs of those with serious mental health problems normally conduct their affairs in private with no access of the public or the media. This is to protect confidentiality and privacy. But private hearings go against the fundamental principle of open justice. The article explores recent developments in which mental health tribunals (which deal with questions whether someone detained in a mental hospital ought to be released) and the Court of Protection (whose concerns include sorting out the property etc of those unable to look after themselves) have both allowed some degree of publicity to their proceedings. In the tribunal case it was a patient who had been detained in Broadmore for 23 years who successfully sort a public hearing in order, he hoped, to publicise his position and his criticisms of the regime. In the COP case the application came from the media. The patient is a renowned pianist who is also autistic and there is signicant public interest in his position. The media had a limited right to publicise information gleaned from the proceedings.