Slashdot Mirror
European Copyrights Expire; RIAA Nervous
colmore writes "This article in today's New York Times (free reg. req.) discusses the expiration of European copyrights for recordings made in the 1950s. Now "bootleg" labels can legitimately print a lot of still-popular early rock, country, jazz, and classical albums. The good folks at the RIAA are trying to establish stricter customs controls. So does this mean cheap Elvis or a diluted pool of products?"
Any music that has an expired copyright is of the public domain.
However, the RIAA & MPAA and other organizations have government backing, and have extended United States copyright laws well beyond the European 50 or so. I believe the current law is 95 years in America, and it can only be made longer by our wonderfully corrupt politicians.
Can I have like, +5 for calling politicians corrupt? Everybody else gets points for just spouting crap, and as long as they say something against the "system" they get hella points. Oh well.
From yahoo
What, me Tweet?
Most copyrights in Europe have 70 years. AFAIK there is something about works of the British Crown with longer periods.
The USA had shorter periods, then extended to 70 years to match the Geneva rules, and *then*, with the Sonny Bono/Micky Mouse Copyright Term Extension Act, went over to 90-95 years.
Computers. You can't live with them, you can't live without them.
But, since there's not much money to be made on tunes with expired copyrights, there's not much reason to record them (other than to put your name on an Xmas album.)
Plus most the music is, like, dated, dude.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
Yes, that is true, European copyrights ARE 95 years, for NEW copyrights. They didnt make the extension retrospective like the USA's act. (And oh how the *AA tried). So anything made in the 1950's had a copyright of 50 years in Europe stayed at 50.
The retrospective extension of copyright is one of the issues that Lawrence Lessig is fighting in the supreme court. I hope for all our sakes that he is victorious.
\Pi*rat"ic*al\, a. [L. piraticus, Gr. ?: cf. F. piratique.] Of or pertaining to a pirate; acquired by, or practicing, piracy; as, a piratical undertaking. ``Piratical printers.'' --Pope. -- Pi*rat\"ic*al*ly, adv.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
Want to talk? ashaver AT pdx DOT edu
But it said Europian rights were expiaring...Does this mean that you can only sell this music in Europe? Or only music recorded in Europe? Anyone know how this works?
This applies to recordings made anywhere, hence Elvis (recorded in Memphis, TN). Technically, selling a legally-produced European CD of post-copyright Elvis in the U.S. would be piracy.
The RIAA seems to be worried less about lost U.S. sales from European imports than they are about lost European revenues by the major labels, which own the rights to entire artist catalogues, thanks to the contracts prevalent at the time which make the contracts that Courtney Love, et al. complain about now look like they're written with hearts over the "i"s and rainbows and unicorns in the margins.
Usally copyright laws are retroactive. Otherwise it wouldn't benifit Disney and the MPAA to lobby the government to 'save' Mickey Mouse, right?
More people need to actually help things by proofreading at: Distributed Proofreading.
Distributed Proofreading actually contributes to the public domain. Show the politicians that it's important by giving them a thriving public domain that they will want to supply with new works.
Where has piracy been committed?
As soon as they enter the US as far as I can tell. Typically wording in bills will say something along the lines of "Producing, distributing or importing" to cover all bases. If you think that's ridiculous, you should check out the current insanity over a work derived from Peter Pan.
Copyright laws aren't usually retroactive. That's why Disney had to lobby so hard to get a retroactive one.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Well, while he may be living in an unreal world, he's also basically correct.
17 USC 602(a) is the applicable statute, IIRC. It has been read to state that copyright holders can control the importation of their works where that importation is a part of their right to control initial distribution under 17 USC 106.
It is inapplicable where the section 106 distribution right is inapplicable, e.g. first sale. That is, if Sony Europe sells a particular CD for a value of $1 in San Marino, they cannot prevent its importation into the US even if it undercuts Sony America's price of $20, BECAUSE THEY ALREADY SOLD IT.
On the other hand, if they were uninvolved, as in the example of a copy made lawfully in Pottsylvania (which has no copyright laws at all), then they can prevent its import since it would thoroughly undermine US copyright laws -- everything would come in from there.
There is an exemption to this if you as an individual import a single copy of any work at any time and intend only to keep them and not redistribute them. (There are some other exemptions too, but that's the most germane here)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
My question is this: People are talking about being able to press Elvis recordings in the public domain now. However, doesn't this expiry only apply for _European_ copyright holders? Since Elvis took out the copyrights in the United States, presumably the 95-year rule still holds true, and not the one which the RIAA is so worried about?
The Welkin: Online Music Reviews
There are two types of royalities paid out, copyright for the songwriters and the mechaniacal royalty for the musicials and singers on a recording. As I know it copyright is for 25 years with 1 renewal allowed. So this is kind of a non story. Songs go public domain after 50 years. UNLESS like some late classical composers to make sure their families would be able to make money into the future would write arrangement of their key pieces. So at the end of the 50 years the family could copyright the arrangement and collect royalites on it. Assumeing the arrangement is used by anyone.
Now the mechinacal royalites on records like an Elvis recording itself, I don't know when those actually end. All it would mean is after 50 years you wouldn't have to pay songwriters royalies, but mechanical royalities may still need to be paid.
No copyright expires in Germany just after 50 years. If a work is copyrighted, these rights will expire 70 years after the author's death. (Substitute "droit d'auteur" for copyright if you want to).
What expires now, after 50 years, are the rights of the perfoming artists, and the those who made the records and distributed them.
This means that only a piece of music can be copied legally if, (a) the composer, songwriter etc. has been dead for at least 70 years, (b) the original release was 50 years ago, and (c) you make your copy from one of the origianl records. (With subsequent, say CD, releases, the record company gets new rights for 50 years.)
So I doubt that many mass-market compatible music recordings will suddenly become unencumbered by copyright law, at least here in Germany. I suspect the situation is similar in other European countries.
Don't forget that there's no such thing as "piracy" when it comes to duplicating intellectual property - piracy only applies when something physical is taken. What the double-speakers at the RIAA are saying in English is "copyright infringement" plain and simple. Don't let them lull you into thinking what goes around on peer to peer nets is piracy. These dolts want you to think of their product as physical when you aquire it illegally, but demand special execptions saying it's not physical.
Because "intellectual property" is not the same as physical property. An idea, once published, becomes known to everyone.
The copyright law was created to encourage creation of new ideas that would eventually benefit all of us. The public promised to give the creator certain rights, in exchange for making their ideas public.
If you have some precious "intellectual property" that you don't want to share, then do not publish it.
Of course, anything Disney does is worthless, unless they do publish it and let people see it...
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Actually, according to some reports drug companies spend more on marketing existing drugs than on research. See this article for instance.
It is us, the taxpayers, who still fund large amount of the basic research needed to create new drugs.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
A new performance and recording of an old song would be protected by copyright. But a new digital remastering of a public domain recording isn't a new work any more than transforming a .wav to .mp3 makes it a new work.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Does anybody know what copyright period is in Canana?
Yes, Life plus 50.
And it's worth remembering that Disney Co. has made a LOT of money off of other works which they didn't create.
Take Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. They didn't create either of them, and made huge financial gains by re-telling the story in animated form.
Why should we be prevented from using THEIR works the same way?
Big companies abuse copyrights for all they're worth. IMHO, they should expire 50 years after the creator's death. And that should not be able to be changed.
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle