Glyn at the Open Rights Group blog posts about the Gowers Review‘s government-commissioned report on what to do about “intellectual property.” (ORG’s press release on the report is here. And—disclosure—I am an ORG’s advisory board, although I’ve missed every phone call.) Apparently, the report is surprisingly not horrible, and is in some ways, pretty good.

It does not recommend extending copyright any further for audio recordings. Yay! Of course, the Brits already give them 50 years of protection, which IMO is way too long—but is far better than the US’s ridiculous giving corpses copyright control for 70 years. And, the Gowers report actually adds exemptions for transformative and derivative works, AKA mash-ups. It even decriminalizes copying from CDs to your MP3 player. And it sings along with Larry Lessig about the cultural tragedy of keeping “orphaned” works—out of print works whose copyright owner cannot be found—protected by copyright. (What’s the opposite of a victimless crime? A beneficiary-free restriction?)

It also suggests the highly sensible idea of requiring DRM’ed works to be labeled as such so the market can decide just how much it’s willing to be bullied.

But, Glyn points out that the report also recommends stricter enforcement of the laws protecting “IP” without distinguishing between commercial pirates manufacturing illegal CDs and individual teenagers sharing music with friends for free.

Overall, the Gowers Report will infuriate the music labels because it considers what’s best for citizens, customers and creators. A step in the right direction the US would do well to emulate. [Tags: gowers copyright drm music open_rights_group lessig]

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