German Official Offers Pro-industry Stance

BY CHRISTIAN LORENZ

COLOGNE, Germany‹The advent of the digital age should not result in a lowering of the music industry's protections, Germany's leading law officer has assured the business. Piracy online should be treated the same legally as piracy in the physical world, says Federal Minister of Justice Edzard Schmidt-Jortzig.
"The boundaries between information and communication networks on the one side and audiovisual media on the other side have become fluid, and the legal framework has to keep pace with this development," said Schmidt-Jortzig during his keynote speech at the PopKomm trade fair, held Aug. 13-16 in the Cologne Congress Center.
"The basic principle [behind the government's approach to the issue] is simple," he added. "What is illegal offline has to be illegal online and vice versa."
Such an assurance will be welcomed by the industry here, even though Schmidt-Jortzig's power to implement the policy is dependent on the will of the German people: A general election will be held in the country Sept. 27.
Schmidt-Jortzig, the highest-ranking German politician ever to attend PopKomm, stated that the German federal government is lobbying at the European Parliament in Brussels to amend the European copyright directive in areas "not sufficiently addressed" by the current copyright treaties drawn up by the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organization (see story, page 10).
The minister added, "It is the aim of the German European Union presidency, which will commence in January 1999, to draft a clearer legal framework for temporary copying and duplication" and to "harmonize regulations regarding payment for private copying." These two issues have been among the main concerns for the music industry both in Germany and across Europe.
The minister demonstrated an understanding of labels and publishers' fears by saying, "New media poses a challenge to the phonographic industries."
He added, "We have to fight the abuse of the possibilities offered by the Internet, but you will find abuse wherever there is freedom. The concepts of freedom and responsibility within a democratic society have to be protected, even if we witness particularly nasty cases of such abuse."
He defended the existing laws regulating the new-media sector‹the so-called Information and Communication Services Law (IuKDG)‹which has been criticized by the German music industry in the past because it frees Internet access providers from responsibility for content provided by third parties.
"Forcing online providers to search the total contents of their site and all home pages linked to it is not a practical solution," said Schmidt-Jortzig. "An amendment of the existing law to this effect would not give justice to the special character and novelty of the Internet and puts a question mark behind the whole concept of 'own responsibility' in the IuKDG."
Schmidt-Jortzig underlined that the existing law guarantees that "manufacturers of phonographic recordings will be able to defend their exclusive rights in all such networks, now and in the future."
Schmidt-Jortzig's speech was the political highlight of the 10th edition of PopKomm. Ralf Plaschke, deputy managing director of organizer Musik Komm, observes, "The music industry as a whole is now being taken seriously outside its own community."
Evidence of that was the fact that, on Aug. 16, a review of the fair was broadcast for the first time on the German TV network ARD's flagship news program, "Tagesschau."
"PopKomm 98 made clear to us that we have reached a new level of public attention," adds Plaschke.
PopKomm this year attracted 15,900 delegates; a total of 3,700 companies from 24 countries were represented on stands. However, one stand‹such as those taken by national industry groups‹sometimes represents up to 200 companies.
Foreign companies now account for 36% of exhibitors, with the biggest non-German contingents coming from the U.K. and the U.S., followed by the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, and France.
The increase of attention to the event comes at the same time as a consolidation of attendance and stand space sold.
"PopKomm saw only a marginal growth in the number of visitors this year," says Plaschke, "and we do not expect any dramatic changes of that figure for 1999. We had more exhibiting companies this year, but the average stand space per exhibitor has dropped."
It is obvious, according to Plaschke, that the difficult market situation in Germany "had an influence" on the fair's traditional core business.
Plaschke sees fresh growth emanating from related areas such as film, spoken-word productions, and new technologies.
"If PopKomm has sent a clear signal this year, it has to be the incredible range and variety of the music sector in the wider sense of the word," says Plaschke. "There are many areas where innovation takes place, where the industry is still growing."
PopKomm 99 will take place Aug. 19-22, 1999, in Cologne.