INTERNATIONAL / COPYRIGHT / ONLINE MUSIC DISTRIBUTION

Copyright World, Issue 103

Mutilating Music

Vanita Kohli

This article offers a warning that the music industry runs the risk of alienating both artists and consumers. In the author’s opinion, copyright law as it now exists is unsuitable for its application to music on the Internet: "making amendments to the old law or putting in place the heavily secure business models that the industry is doing will end up making criminals of most consumers", offering little protection to artists and undoing any benefits that the Internet can give them. As new technology arrives, new changes in and adaptations of copyright law have been made, so that it is now a patchwork of concepts; and the original concept of copyright, particularly in relation to authors of the written word, has been stretched and twisted to apply to circumstances without proper regard to the differences between the various forms of copyright material. "Copyright seems to have become protection against use rather than against competition copying the product." Music is given the same protection as films, even though films are seldom seen more than twice, while music which is enjoyed is listened to scores of times. Both United States legislation and the proposed EU Directive on copyright are directed towards an extension of the term of copyright protection. The balance is shifting dangerously away from the interests of consumers. It is time for new concepts to apply to the protection of the respective interests, even if this means a "re-thinking" of copyright law. Above all, the legislators should not attempt to adjust the law to every single new development in technology: the law should be based on general concepts and on a fair balance of protection. [20031]