Sir, – The current debate about the future of copyright in the Internet age is heavy with misapprehensions and obfuscations. It is a confused landscape, where legitimate concerns about free speech, the future for innovation and access to information, are often quoted in arguments against any legislative attempts to regularise the chaos in copyright law and its administration.
It is worth reflecting briefly on the history. The advent of the printing press, and later of recorded media, began to see the growth of the notion of copyright. Traditionally, creators had been paid by the patronage of royals, popes and princes.
This was gradually replaced by a method whereby the creator of a work was recompensed more or less directly by those who chose to purchase it. For whatever were its practical imperfections, out of this model grew an economic and democratic connection between the author and the reader, composer and the listener, film-maker and the viewer.
The internet saw the arrival of the notion of file sharing – the practice of freely uploading and downloading copyrighted material. The notion of copyright was soon to be replaced by a free-for-all, literally, where the facility set up by Internet Service Providers allowed copyrighted material to be accessed and enjoyed without the payment of fees or royalties. The effect of this was to alter the relationship between the creator and the public and what emerged was a market without a currency.
In a recent Prime Time programme about Internet piracy, TJ McIntyre referred to new models now being put in place. He indicated that creators would be invited to share in the advertising revenue that the ISPs have earned over the years as a result of hosting free content.
Of course the creators should share in this income, but it is my belief that any proposals for new models should flow from the established principle of copyright. This links the writer, the work, the audience and the media that broadcasts it – in this case the ISPs. The idea that the creator’s income should be funded by corporate advertising revenue on the internet is as legally and economically confused as it is socially and culturally undesirable.
It is into this legal and social hiatus that thoughtful and equitable legislation should appear and, as a small country which prides itself on its welcoming approach to technology and the arts, Ireland has an opportunity to lead the thinking here.
Like all of us who welcome the Internet as a positive innovation in our lives, I would appeal to our legislators, to my fellow artists and to anyone interested in the future of creativity to pause before believing that copyright regulation equals the death of innovation or free speech.
I would argue that the reverse is true. The lives and works of future authors, composers, performers and innovators depend upon it. – Yours, etc,