Next up at the Westminster eForum is Peter Jenner, emeritus president of the IMMF – a manager and “recovering economist”. He says he's going to look at copyright more from an economist's point of view, too, getting away from the law.”It seems to me that in the online world, the marginal cost of a digital file is essentially zero,” he says, making it an “inescapable reality” that the digital world is pushing the price of music towards zero.”If we rely on a copyright law – i.e. a right to copy law – we're clearly barking down a historical blind alley.” He says the comparison is making airline legislation based on the rail network. “There aren't many signals in the sky…”So, he criticises the “quasi-monopoly rights” of the international record companies, which have come up against a “huge problem” in the digital world.He goes on to talk about copyright – it gives creators an incentive to create, while consumers agree to it on the expectation of a stream of original and interesting content. At least, that's how Jenner says it traditionally works.”I don't like to use the word consumer in the context of the digital world though, because we do not 'consume' files,” he says. “There is no limit to the number of files that can be copied. Every time you send a file to somebody else, you increase the supply.”He returns to the idea about distribution being “taken away from the corporations” – in the old days, artists couldn't get their music into shops without going through a record company, or indeed get paid.So he says that the pressure for – for example – copyright extension is coming from the industry rather than from creators. They're not worrying about whether their grandchildren will benefit from a song when they're writing and/or recording it.Onto the digital world – “attempts to stop people copying are clearly a waste of time, and not only are they a waste of time, they make the law offensive. It's very similar to prohibition in America in the 1930s.”Jenner says the challenge is to rebuild the relationship between creators and the public. The latter have an “inexhaustible demand for new content”, and creators want to go on writing songs, books and making games.”As an industry we have to start thinking about how we rebuild that model so that the creator can make money from his or her creations, and so the people who help the creator with investment can make some return on their investment with time and money.”But at the same time, the public have to be able to use the content and new technologies without worrying about it. “If I can buy it, I can use it,” he says.Jenner thinks that people DO respect the fact that creators have to earn a living, though. “We have to rethink the fundamental ways in which we pay the creators, and we provide an investment route. The investment issue is absolutely crucial.”He turns to China, as an example of a country that needs a copyright system – just not the one we have in the UK – “it's broken!”. But he talks about other models, like the BBC licence fee, or advertising-supported commercial TV, and the way people pay for access to the internet.”It seems to me that we should be looking at how we can work as the creative industries with the ISPs and various service providers on how we can work together to generate a flow of income in the future which enables people to get paid for the creations according to how people appreciate those creations.”However, he says the barrier is “institutions within our society trying to stop it”. Jenner says that the Digital Economy Act has at least done two things that's good – “it's told the record companies that you have got to do something about your licensing, and it's told the ISPs that they've got to do something with the record companies about illegal usage”.So Jenner thinks the industries should be allowed to talk together and figure out how they can help get creators' work to end users, and develop business models that benefit both ISPs and the music industry.”The best thing I've heard about is the whole thing about RapidShare – people pay for RapidShare, so that seems like a model we can use,” he says.”If we can get
