EU to Extend Music Copyright to 95 Years
Written by Ben Jones on July 14, 2008The IFPI and mediocre artists around the world are rubbing their hands in glee, after a proposal to extend copyright in the EU for another 45 years. The proposal, intended to ‘benefit musicians’, comes up for a vote on Wednesday. On the plus side, at the same time collecting societies are going to have their practices scrutinized.
The proposal by Irish EU commissioner Charlie McCreevy, currently serving as European Commissioner for Internal Market & Services, was first proposed back in February. It aims to extend copyright protection for performing artists from 50 years to 95.
The proposal is supposed to secure the pensions of long forgotten artists. In a statement, McCreevy said “I am not talking about featured artists like Cliff Richard or Charles Aznavour. I am talking about the thousands of anonymous session musicians who contributed to sound recordings in the late fifties and sixties. They will no longer get airplay royalties from their recordings. But these royalties are often their sole pension.”
According to the Financial Times, the proposal could come up to vote as early as this Wednesday, July 16th. Also up for discussion would be a plan to split up rights societies by the antitrust arm of the commission, potentially making rights societies compete against each other for the rights to collect royalties from artists.
While this would certainly be a better way to curb their less than philanthropic actions, if it comes at the cost of greater copyright, is it that beneficial to the 500 million citizens of Europe? There is a glimmer of hope though. Two commissioners are opposed to the extension plan; telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding and commissioner Antonio Tajan.
The copyright extension plans met initial scorn back when they were first announced in February, with groups like the Open Rights Group and the EFF launching a petition to have it blocked, as well as a website to deal with the issue. Nevertheless, McCreevy kept on going, and the proposal is now ready to be voted on.
McCreevy himself has his pension already planned from a former partnership in a chartered accountancy firm (and he has been in politics since 1977, so he clearly planned early). It is left to wonder then why he feels the need to legislate some sort of speciality pension for artists. If they decide to stop work at 25, why should they be paid for it past 75? If that has been their only source of income, why could they not have done as the hundreds of millions of other EU citizens, myself included, and planned for their retirement?
Commissioner McCreevy had not replied to a request for comment at the time of publication.
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65 Responses
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“I am not talking about featured artists like Cliff Richard or Charles Aznavour. I am talking about the thousands of anonymous session musicians who contributed to………….”
he forgets to mention that the labels will live happily for another half century on these very fees.
Bastards and sons of whores.
This is the EU version Sonny Bono copyright extension shit
my $0.2… actually, make that € because the $ just does not have the kick anymore :P
- http://www.ezee.se
What the fuck? On average, people don’t even live that long. Copyright terms are essentially sleeping periods before vast swaths of creativity are allowed to legally mobilize (at which point we will likely have to suffer another 95 years before the next batch of creativity). It’s flat out ridiculous.
Cut the copyright immediately after sales peak. That gives the artist/producer/whoever plenty of time to make their money, while still giving the rest of the world a chance to create at a relatively high rate.
95 years is more than a bit on the extreme side. i which i could get paid for something even just 50 years after i did it.
and the whole the whole “its there only income” thing doesnt really wash with me. as it says in the article, others make provisions for there pensions and so should these artists
They created something, they deserve to have their creation respected for at least the longevity of their life. If they don’t want people using something they made, why should they allow it? Come on now it’s common sense. I should hope there’s nobody out there who thinks it’s actually MORAL to download music without the consent of all those who would benefit from royalties.
Only the living needs a pension.
If the argument is that they need it for their pension then they obviously do not need it when they are dead!.
Ergo when they die of old age their copyright should be null and void. Their kids/managers will have to deal with facts of life like everyone else.
Yes it is MORAL when 99.99999% of price ends up in pockets of managers and other corporate ppl.
Make it possible to pay directly to artists - I`ll gladly do so.
“If that has been their only source of income, why could they not have done as the hundreds of millions of other EU citizens, myself included, and planned for their retirement?”
Especially since they knew about copyright expiration at the time and did nothing.
“They created something, they deserve to have their creation respected for at least the longevity of their life. If they don’t want people using something they made, why should they allow it? Come on now it’s common sense. I should hope there’s nobody out there who thinks it’s actually MORAL to download music without the consent of all those who would benefit from royalties.”
Yea they created it and as long as someone isn’t going about saying they made it then they are being respected for making it. I hope no one out there thinks it’s actually MORAL for record labels to make money off of someone else’s work.
Relying on selling music is absurd. Why not go to college like most and actually make something of yourself and your life instead of bitching at the rest of the world on why you don’t have enough money.
No public domain for you… Better get used to it cause in 50 years they will double it again and so forth as long as lobby power trumps the power of the people.
Hell a monarchy is better than the authoritarians at the EU.
Ooohhh!!! very interesting!!! Now THE PARASITES executives from the record labels (RIAA - IFPI) can continue STEALING the profits of the artists for more time, in the same way as they have done in the past four decades, paying to the artists only 7 to 14 percent from the sale of each album…
I think this argument falls flat on it’s face for the one reason that was already mentioned - the artists always knew when the copyright would expire!
Copyright Law = Guaranteed parasitic and easy life for executives from media cartels (RIAA - MPAA - IFPI - BPI)
make creative commons the only applicable copyright and decrease it to five years
“I am talking about the thousands of anonymous session musicians who contributed to sound recordings in the late fifties and sixties.”
So this is Retrospective Legislation ???? some may be aware of how David Maxwell Fyfe railed against such things when these were the hallmark of Dictatorships, Odd how the group that stands to gain most from this, would include a fair number from a group who were the main targets of said Dictatorships
Who cares?
It’s not like people respect the copyright anyways, let them extend it for 1000 years, see if I care.
“I am talking about the thousands of anonymous session musicians who contributed to sound recordings in the late fifties and sixties. They will no longer get airplay royalties from their recordings.”
If those lazy bastards haven’t done any paid work since the 50s, then screw ‘em. Cut copyright terms back so that we get more music and more artists instead of encouraging them to cut a single record and then laze about.
Spoken like people that have never created anything themselves.
Artists throughout history have been poor and many have lived tortured lives. At the very least they, and their children, should benefit from their talent and effort. Talent and effort that nurtures our lives.
> “I should hope there’s nobody out there who thinks it’s actually MORAL to download music without the consent of all those who would benefit from”
I think it is not at all immoral to pirate things. It simply means ignoring copyright law, law that I believe to me immoral.
However, I do think it is very moral to buy what you like or otherwise support the people who create in any way possible if you can afford it.
> “Artists throughout history have been poor and many have lived tortured lives. At the very least they, and their children, should benefit from their talent and effort. Talent and effort that nurtures our lives.”
Why should someone’s children get rich from a hit album their parents made? How about they do something productive themselves?
> “Spoken like people that have never created anything themselves.”
Interesting assumption, especially because you can base that on nothing really.
What is this software you keep telling us that you previously made? You may have mentioned it on another page but I haven’t seen it.
Being an artist doesn’t give you automatic rights to riches and wealth.
I dont give a f*ck if you cant afford all kinds of crazy cars and houses.. you MADE MUSIC. You didnt go out in the freezing cold and work your ass off..
F*CK YOU if you think you deserve tons of money for some music..
‘Ohh god but its so hard to make music and art..’
NOT ITS NOT YOU F*CKING IDIOT. Work one day at my job and il show you HARD.
How is it fair that people make money off something they’re born with? Not everyone can sing, not everyone can act and so on. Most of us have to try to make something of ourselves, and yet others can just open their mouth and money falls at their feet.
Not everyone has a talent that they can amaze the world with and have people spend money on it to entertain themselves. Then, these people bitch when they don’t make ENOUGH money. For Christ’s sake, grow up and take a step into reality. You’re in a business where your “friends” steal more then people of the world steal from you. Plus, no artists stays popular all the way through. At one point or another, most fall through. Now if your sorry ass had continued school and got yourself a degree, you’d probably have a solid job.
greattt!
america the land of the corruption*
nexus : That’s land of corruption ©
So, what can we do about this?
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