Featured Artists Coalition response to the Hargreaves Report

The FAC welcomes today’s Hargreaves Report.

Taking an optimistic viewpoint, we are very much in favour of the idea of the Rights Exchange that gives an equal weight to the enforcement of rights holders and to encouraging the easier, broader licensing of those same rights. That is a powerful and compelling combination. Hargreaves’ proposal of a Rights Exchange will achieve this and the artist/creator community is the unifying element that can help make it real.

There is already a good stick in the DEA, taking the FAC’s recommendations to heart – it now looks as if Hargreaves has come up with an ingenious carrot! The effect of this would be to help protect both the work of creators and make it much easier for new services and platforms to access our work and license it.

It is totally right and fair that in order to benefit from the protection of the DEA, rights owners have to register with the Digital Exchange. Unfortunately registration doesn’t automatically make the registered work available for use by a prospective licensee. We look forward to clarification on this.

The Report suggests an Exchange will make market transactions faster, more automated and cheaper, creating a more informed market which is more readily capable of resolving disputes without costly litigation. But this will only work if the pricing is transparent and independently set.

The support by Hargreaves to legislate the use of orphan works is a good thing for all parties and long overdue. If there is to be a license payable for orphan works, the FAC would want a clear indication of what will happen to the money.

The FAC supports the legislation of private copying/format shifting.

In conclusion, with the exception of legalising format shifting and making it easier to use orphan works, right now, it’s very much business as usual. The effectiveness of the recommendations all hinge on the execution and pricing.

And this needs to happen with complete transparency between all parties concerned.