One topic that pops up now and then around the world is that of copyright term extension, with claims that it’s needed to foster creativity, and recoup costs.

Of course, at this stage, it’s nonsense, since if you can’t make your money back within 70+ years, you’re never going to, nor will it encourage any more creation.

Explaining it all is this video by C.G.P. Grey. It’ll be handy reference when the inevitable extension act comes around sometime near 2018, when copyrights are due to start expiring again, in the US.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The Legal Affairs Committee in the European Parliament has approved the resolution to extend the copyright term, as we have discussed in the past, from 50 years to 95 for recordings. This will now move on to a plenary vote in March.

Opposition for the extension has been considerable. Last month, the Open Rights Group (ORG) held a roundtable with several academics and MEPs, including at least one member of the Legal Affairs Committee, while scathing critiques on the proposal have appeared in influential newspapers over the past year.

Crucially, the main ‘benefit’ touted by Commissioner McCreevy – that it’s for the benefit of session musicians and the like – is significantly weakened by an amendment from the committee that gives the administration over to collecting societies. Of course, that’s assuming you can prove your entitlement to this money. According to veteran producer and musician Mike Collins, speaking at the ORG roundtable, records relating to session musician participation were not common until recently.

Perhaps worst of all, the commission has now been asked by the committee to perform an impact study based around extending the term of video performances by a similar amount. Although the study will doubtless find that there will be little benefit to any but the major content producers in performing such an extension, it will likely be ignored (as the study that said the same thing in this case was ignored) and the proposal will proceed.

There is a slight ray of hope though, in that there is a requirement to review the social situation of artists in 3 years time, and then every 4 years, to see how this has improved things. This might curtail any further extension on this subject, but the non-existent change in artist benefits from this, might prompt them to put things back how they were. Or, they could decide to make the terms even longer….

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.