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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?
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.
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.
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.
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.