Written evidence submitted by the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society Limited (‘ALCS’)

The Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society Limited (‘ALCS’) is the UK collecting society for writers. Established in 1977 and wholly owned and governed by the writers it represents (of whom there are currently over 83,000), ALCS is a not-for-profit, non-union organisation. ALCS exists to ensure that writers receive a fair level of return when their works are used in situations in which it would be impossible or impractical to issue licences on an individual basis. Since its foundation, ALCS has paid writers over £280 million in fees and today it continues to identify and develop new sources of income for writers. We would be happy to provide oral evidence to the Committee in support of this response.

1. We recognise that the Committee will be reviewing the submissions made to the original call for evidence. The ALCS submission, supported by statistical data and case studies from writers, made the following inter-related points:

- Writers work at the heart of the UK’s creative industries;

- The UK copyright system must maintain the access/reward balance;

- This balance is, in part, underpinned by established licensing structures ;

- Licensing income supports the creation of new works (the ‘regenerative cycle of creativity’).

2. The Government response to the Hargreaves review supports ‘a substantial opening up of the UK’s copyright exceptions regime.’ This will include new measures to allow: limited private copying; extensions to the current non-commercial research exceptions (including new allowances for ‘data-mining’) and creating works of parody. Given the Government’s support for the principle that ‘evidence should drive policy’, plans to press ahead this autumn with proposals for new legislation seem premature when there are several questions that have yet to be fully explored and researched. These include:

3. Private copying. A full examination of the potential ‘harm’ resulting from a new private copying exception for individual users and their families has yet to be undertaken, not least in the context of the requirements of the European Copyright Directive relating to the payment of fair compensation.

Furthermore, harm to rightsholders is a criterion by which the need for fair compensation may be judged, but this is not an absolute or exclusive test. The Hargreaves report notes the ‘considerable evidence of overall public benefits’ from acts of private copying. This benefit-focussed analysis has yet to be undertaken and should form part of any process of pre-legislative review.

4. Non-commercial research. The proposals to widen the current UK exceptions to the fullest extent permissible by EU law do not take account of extensive and evolving UK licensing structures, particularly in the context of developing new educational access models. A full review of how the new proposals fit within this structure is required to avoid the unintended consequence of weakening economic growth, by prejudicing the future output of writers and other key contributors that rely on licensing income.

5. A similar concern relates to the proposals due to be brought forward on orphan works and extended collective licensing. The parameters of these new schemes will, to a large degree, depend on how works are defined – orphan, in or out of commerce – and how proposed uses are characterised: commercial, non-commercial, ‘cultural’. Prior to considering the terms of possible legislative solutions, more work needs to be done to further define the uses and works that may be within the scope of these new schemes.

6. Parody. Apart from the paucity of evidence advanced in support of a new parody exception, the wider issue of how such a provision would operate within the UK’s current moral rights regime – which offers authors far weaker protection and redress than that in other countries with parody exceptions – should also be reviewed in detail as a precursor to any legislative intervention.

5 September 2011