Slashdot Mirror
'That's All Right' Soon To Enter UK Public Domain
jwlidtnet writes "Reuters is reporting that Elvis's "That's All Right"--currently an unlikely hit in Great Britain--is soon to enter the public domain in that country, followed by other milestones of popular music as Britain's fifty-year protection period comes to an end. Naturally, rights owners are outraged, regarding it as a "wakeup call" for Britain to adopt something similar to the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act, to end this "discrepancy between the United States and the EU." Copyright law uniformity has of course been a sore issue in recent years, with the exportation of "DMCA-alike" legislation raising the ire of many. Uniformity on an issue this divisive might be difficult to achieve politically."
Perhaps they could encourage the US to conform to more sane standards that benefit the people instead of the big corporations who want to milk a dead man's music for all the profit they can get out of it.
By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
If this recording enters the public domain, what incentive will Elvis have to produce new music?
Okay I wanna know if there is ANY possible justification for this except PURE
GREED. And I don't mean the good kind of greed that drives competition,
innovation, and creation of new music.
Elvis is dead. He doesn't need the money. His estate run by spongers sure
doesn't need it. When he wrote the song, in fact, copyright law was less
draconian than it is now. So he certainly wasn't factoring in a copyright
extensions when he wrote the song "Hey, I wonder if I should write a song
today. Well, if they don't extend copyright in 2005, I won't, I have better
things to do."
Shouldn't copyright be used to *encourage new music*?? This is just sick. I
wish they would just STOP extending copyright. I wish the governments around
the world would just say, OKAY YOU'VE HAD ENOUGH.
I wish they would view copyright as an *exchange* between the copyright holder
and the public, and not just some formality that the record labels have to go
through every few years to keep extending it.
Can you think of any other situation where you can just go up to the
government and say, hey, I'd like to extract money from society for another 20
years?
And Elvis and the record companies knew it 50 years ago, when they were making the music in the first place.
If copyright law is changed so that it extends some number of years after the death of the artists, rather than from the date of release of the recording, will we see the likes of 2 year old "Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily", "Fifi Trixibelle" and "Moon Unit" banging a drum on the backing track to prolong copyright as much as possible?
>> Uniformity on an issue this divisive might be difficult to achieve politically.
Specially since Blair has been accused of letting Dubya have his way on one to many an issue.
Given that this is mostly a commercial issue (national or global security is hardly at stake), I have a feeling Blair and the Labour party will politely ask the Americans to go shove it where the sun don't shine and score with the masses on both sides of the pond.
..in japan.
About the alleged "discrepancy between the United States and the EU." - Many (most?) European countries have life plus 70. I was surprised to find that Great Britain does not.
IAAAL - I am actually a lawyer
If individual artists controlled their own music, we wouldn't have anyone lobbying for insane copyright terms, because individuals eventually die, so there's no one to keep lobbying for more and more extensions. The problem with corporations is that they're immortal, so there's no end to the insanity. Believe me, if they get the term extended to 95 years, the Slashdot headline in July 2049 will be about how the Elvis recordings are about to enter the public domain, and the music industry is lobbying the government to extend the term to 150 years so they can keep making money. Every time I read about the RIAA or IFPI, I'm reminded that there are ETLAs far more annoying than GNAA.
Hear recorded Slashdot headlines on your phone! New service beta testing. Just call (248) 434-5508
Anyone remember A Little Less Conversation Elvis vs JXL? it reached Number One in 20 countries, including the USA.
This song becoming a hit is more likely than one might imagine.
As for "rights owners" we need to say who this phrase really means: The American monopoly music companies.
They have already said that they will try and block the importation of products containing legally produced public domain works; it would be the most delicious of situations if this song did become a huge smash after it entered the public domain in the UK, and the RIAA tried to block its importation.
One thing is for certain; as more and more works enter the public domain here in the UK, the likelyhood of a hit coming from one of these works increases. This confrontation is going to happen.
ATH0 Bitcoin: 1DnwFLXczVZV8kLJbMYoheUrpqHesjxrSi
...is the tone of the article - it doens't even consider that original idea that copyright might be about balance, a privilege accorded with the intent of fostering creation. Rather, it is simply accepted that the natural expiration of these copyrights, which the holders knew would happen, is somehow causing a property loss to the current holders.
Imagine if you obtained a 50 year lease, and then at the end of those 50 years, the owner wanted the property back. Would you moan to the government about extending your term unilaterally, with no other compensation to the actual owner?
But Elvis is alive! I just saw him leaving the building!
I could use another 20+ years for this attrocity to wait.
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
It might serve to look at the release of the material into a market as a contract. If the copyright holders choose to release the material into a market then they also choose, tacitly, to accept the conditions imposed by the copyright laws of the market, in this case a 50 year limit. If, as in this case, the Americans don't want to play by the British rules they should keep their product at home.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
With record companies, I wonder if they can release low quality versions into public domain, while maintaining rights to higher quality versions. So they can release 96kbit mp3 into public domain, but a CD quality version maintains or recieves copywrite.
But I think this scenario will definately have interesting results. If the track does become a hit and is public domain, how will companies distinguish their final products from one another? Will it come down to the case, additional tracks, a DVD movie?... Other ways of looping copywrite into the equation? I will be waiting for the outcome.
I suspect that in most cases, the copyright owners make most of the money on their copyrights in the first five years or so.
By ten years, most of the copyrights are nearly worthless.
I don't see any reason why copyrights should extend past twenty years.
If copyrights are the property of their owners, why not treat them as property and require that property taxes be paid on copyrights and allow the copyright owner to make the material public docmain if the property taxes exceed the income from the copyrights?
From the article:
... Our stuff is still selling, and there's about 250 various compilation albums out there worldwide. I'd like the period extended as soon as possible, and 95 years sounds good to me."
"It's scary," Welch said during a 37-date sold-out tour of the United Kingdom. "I only became aware of the situation last year
Yeah, sounds like he'd really be struggling if he lost the income from that 50-year-old song.
The late '50s and '60s was more than 40 years ago! Who guaranteed anyone a right to still be profiting from music recorded before man set foot on the moon, especially when those artists are no longer around? The living Beatles, the heirs to Elvis Presley Enterprises, and anyone else who has been suckling at the copyright teat for 40 years should be grateful for what they have. Quit whining about "loss of income" from something you didn't lift a finger to produce.
I'm lucky to be paid a decent wage for the work I do today, and I'll consider myself fortunate if my job is still around next month. I sure as hell don't have any expectation that, 40 years from now, I'll still be making money from something I did today! Much less that my kids, if I ever choose to have any, will see any benefit beyond what I manage to save up and pass on to them. Even pension plans are a dying breed here in the US; when once a widow could count on her husband's years of duty to his company to provide some meager living for her when she survived him, nowadays it's generally left up to Social Security.
Why, then, is it so different when it comes to copyrighted works, music in particular? Why is it that the descendants of dead musicians feel that they're due millions of dollars for their parents' (or even grandparents') work, eternally? I don't get it. Maybe I should have been born to musicians.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
It's an attempt to colonise the creative commons.
It will fail.
Elvis found his inspiration and many of his melodies in a common musical culture created by (ironically) generations of the poorest black American musicians. Creativity comes from many sources, but corporate profits are not one of them. This was true in the early part of the 20th century, where the sheet-music publishers tried to dominate the music industry (and failed). It is as true today.
For every "major" work copyrighted and kept out of the cultural blender, a hundred unknown artists pour their talent into creating something new.
Let them have their copyrights. It means young artists will have to search harder for their inspirations, but the results will be better for it.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
so it's our anyway.
You can't claim that 'That's all right' is a song that would not have happened if Elvis hadn't sung it.
Suttree, a weblog about casual games development
"Bitch, piss, moan, we can't rape a dead man's music catalogue for cash and many dubious "Best of" albums, boo fucking hoo, I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy etc etc"
Well, I got news for ya RIAA! EASY COME EASY GO, SHUT THE FUCK UP! This is LAW. You aren't allowed to profit by getting new laws in place which benefit you and nobody else! EVER! Especially not in countries which aren't corrupt like the US government! Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. If you want profit, you have to make it the old fashioned honest way: MAKING GOOD NEW MUSIC AND SELLING IT. Unfortunately, the RIAA are used to making profit and not earning it, because "they deserve it".
Fuck that. I wish the US would break them up, considering they are an illegal cartel.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
Does this mean that Mickey Mouse is public domain in england?
Even in Europe, the song itself is not in the public domain because Athur Crudup, its composer, died only as late as 1974. In most European countries, works of performing artists are only protected for 50 years, but for the actual lyrics and music, the clock starts running after the author's death (and runs for 50 or 70 years).
That means that the European rules mainly cause classical music to enter the public domain at this point.
The key defect of the Sony Bono copyright extension act is that it does not reward the creator of the work...it extends monopoly rights to the assignees of the work.
The history of copyright is one long battle between the rights of the author and the rights of third-parties. The Sony Bono copyright extension act does nothing to reward or encourage the author...it removed many works from the public domain and established criminal sanctions for any fool who might use those works newly re-copywritten. Who pushed this law in the US? Disney. THE MOUSE almost went into the public domain and a company contemplated the demise of their core IP rights and promptly made certain THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN.
The Sony Bono copyright extension act is only the most current power grab. It is the camel's nose under the tent of author's rights. Creator's be damned-let's reward the assignees. Mr. Michael Jackson funds his interests with the copyright royalties from the works of McCartney & Lennon. Not one dime of those royalties reward, support or encourage either of the two living Beatles. They fund Mr. Jackson's "Neverland" ranch and his defense attorneys. All you need is love? Or, is all you need are buckets of money to fund Mr. Jackson's peculiar concept of love? Any way you look at this it stinks on ice!
You can be certain that well before the MOUSE or Jackson find their IP holdings in danger of falling into the public domain again that another extension will be enacted.
Now is the time for a major nation to upset this unearned windfall for the lucky, but uncreative, assignees of author's works. Limit the rights of publishers, purchasers and offspring to profit from the (usually) under compensated creator's works!
before you even consider moving to britain, sometimes known as england, you could learn to speak, read and write english!
Music has been entering the public domain there for years hasn't it?
:)
Oh yeah, this is Elvis we're talking about, heaven forbid his music ever be free.
(wait till the Beatles' hits hit the wire...)
Dont worry, in 50 years or so, some copyright will be repealed. No one will give a damn about protecting today's pop musical shite. But the old stuff will remain protected FOREVER AND EVER.
So if this happens, will the online music stores not pay any longer and make an extra profit?
Apple currently gets a 13 cent cut off of each song and by the recent financial statement appears to make about 2.4 cents a song profit.
Will Apple be able to collect the 55 cents that goes to the RIAA and the 32 cents the artists get?
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
This disscusion, I guess, is rather old and pointless too, because it have been always the same..
...American.
In 50-60ties there was sheet music industry (publishers). They were a middle man, actually they did NOTHING in creation of work of art, but they wanted EVERYTHING. Profits, everything. Musicians usually didn't wanted to take care of redistribution, publishing, so they given those rights to publishers.
As anywhere, when bigger and bigger money appears in industry, middle man is always trying to gain more and more money, actually even don't caring that could turn lot of tallented people away from mainstream publishers and to try independent ones.
So, question is, when there is REASONABLE to extend copyright? I would say - a little bit, BUT not 100 years, not 'forever'. However the greed of middle man aka big fat publishing companies are actually unstoppable, as they all are
So, whatever. BUT one thing they don't know - that their actions actually shrinks their market. They looking for today's profits, don't care about tomorrow.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
Ugbog and Moon-Pixie Spears have contested the copyright expiration of the classic Earth music their late, departed genetic Mother* Britney produced in the dark half of the twenty-first century. Moon-Pixie has amassed a considerable thought-petition amongst the noble citizenry of the outer satellites of the Lewinsky-Shatner system. She has mind-beamed a long list of names to the central Solar executive, and is awaiting their synaptic consent. The music of the former Earth-President Britney has been studied extensively for the last 30 years by a range of conscious and super-conscious experts. They have all agreed that the sub-spiritual quality of her sonic poems, when combined with the post-Leno auto-referentialism that abounded at the time, make her work of particular historical importance. Moon-Pixie Spears is seeking to prevent the mass humming of Britney's work by neural-construction engineers that has been popular in the outer quadrants for decades, as this is an infringement of the original copyright provision. ( * Mother - an example of early 21st century outmoded genetic relationship nomenclature - it's common usage is all but illegal today. )
The short answer is, people are still paying money for that product. It's right that for a certain period a recording should generate money for the artist, as long as people out there are buying it.
But that doesn't excuse this kind of greed -
As we all know, the record industry is in a bad state right now. New music is being supported less than it ever has been, mainly because the industry majors are structured to make their money from albums recorded decades ago.
If they have to look for new music to make their money from, then maybe they might have start developing bands and finding real talent again! Either that or sell even MORE Britney albums...
what are the chances the big music companies would choose to showcase a tune that is about to go into the public domain by releasing a single for it putting it through the hype machine to push it up to #3? seems they wanted to have a clear case of a song that revenue will be lost on if copyright is not extended. am i just being too skeptical?
What Future?
So merely because the US has fucked up copyright laws, every other country has to follow suit for the sake of uniformity?!
Oh yeah, that makes sense!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
We always knew that media content owners are greedy, this is no news. The question is what should we do. I believe that the only solution is to stop paying for content. Stop paying for music, for movies, for software, for books, etc. The goal of such boycott should not be to impress or persuade anyone, but to give as little money as possible to copyright violators (i.e. those who violate the very purpose of copyright that is enriching the public domain). Don't worry about artists, musicians or set builders, just spend the money on something else. If you like a film or a tune, download it from P2P, buy a pirated copy or (if you have no other option), rent it for 1$ on DVD.
The goal is not to break media companies financially, one person can't do it. The goal is to feel good about not contributing to the ongoing rape of the public domain.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Britain != England
:)
Britain = England + Scotland + Wales
I'm English, and I do not wish to be associated with the Welsh, thank you very much
"Proudly Posting Without Reading The Article"
"So, it might actually be reasonable to give infinite ownership to the creator. Probably not a good practical idea, but reasonable people could at least make a good moral argument."
Why? I haven't seen "a good moral argument" for that case.
But I can make an easy argument NOT to make them infinite. The person who created the work will not live forever.
"And all this makes the "X years plus life of author" make sense, I suppose. It's a balance."
Yet 50 years is ALSO "a balance".
What is the criteria for choosing one over the other?
"My moral threshold would be much higher actually (X=100 years maybe), but from an economic standpoint, I really hate to see a valuable work go to waste."
Why is your "moral threshold" that high? Why do you not consider economics in your "moral threshold"?
The government (funded by the people) has to protect those copyrights. Where is the benefit to the people of that action if the works only enter the PUBLIC domain long after they've ceased to be of any value to the PUBLIC?
Your position would be stronger if the INDIVIDUALS held the copyrights to their creations.
But now it is mostly the corporations that hold those copyrights.
The extensions are designed so that every bit of value can be extracted long before the works end up in the public domain.
Which is why Disney fights for extensions every time Mickey Mouse is in danger of hitting the public domain.
Recall that one key argument for the Sonny Bono copyright extension act was that it was needed to make the US consistent with Europe. Now the Europeans are saying they need to change their laws to be consistent with the US. It's beautiful --- they make "progress" by just leapfrogging each other.
... doing what? Who wants to bet that they extend copyrights just a little beyond the US in some area, so the US will then have to "catch up"?
-- The EU makes compositions death of the author + 70 years, and records date of recording + 50 years
-- The US becomes "consistent" by making all copyrights death of the author + 70 years
-- The EU restores "consistency" by
I'm not in the UK or anywhere in the EU, but for those who are I'd like to point out that about now would be a very good time to bring to the attention of your politicians things like Project Gutenberg, which directly benefit from the expiry of copyright.
Certainly part of the problem is that it's not always clear what possible benefits there could possibly be for ever letting works exit copyright. Gutenberg is an active project that's both becoming succesful, and demonstrates that people are out there trying to make an active effort to benefit from existing law.
If politicians don't realise that people are benefiting from existing law, they'll have far less reason to consider not changing it when lobbied by the corporates. It's a bonus that Gutenberg can quite correctly claim that rather than ripping off other people's work, it's saving and making accessible a lot of valuable resources that most likely would simply have vanished otherwise.... and without a reasonable expiry of copyright this simply coldn't happen.
United Kingdom = Great Britain + Northern Ireland
I hadn't forgetten ;)
"Proudly Posting Without Reading The Article"
Looters.com
... Our stuff is still selling, and there's about 250 various compilation albums out there worldwide. I'd like the period extended as soon as possible, and 600 years sounds good to me."
European Copyright Clock Expired on Shakespeare Hits
LONDON (Billhoard) - Over four hundred years after it was first released in the England, Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", "Macbeth", and other plays are still hits across the globe.
Shakespeare's works have been printed by the tens of millions, with hundreds of theater groups preforming thousands of performances every year for untold millions of consumers. For the original author and publisher the celebration is long over.
If there are no changes in European copyright law, the play will languish in public domain. Anyone will can release or even preform it without paying royalties to the authors performer's heirs. Publishers are losing a fat wads of cash all across Europe.
As Shakespeare's works are being hailed by some as some of the greatest works in the English language, more and more works are falling into public domain.
The Shakespeare case illustrates the importance of the issue for publishing companies in Europe. The lost profits are incalculable.
WAKEUP CALL
"I regard this week's anniversary as a wakeup call and a call to arms to step up a gear or two in our campaign to lobby for longer terms in the EU," said Jim E. Monet, executive chairman of Brutish Publishing Industry, in a recent speech.
Cecil R. Logik added, "The lapse copyright on the explosion of British popular writings and music, not just the Shakespeare, but many other British artists, is is already happening. If nothing is done they will suffer loss of income not just for their sales in the U.K. but their sales across the globe."
An increasing number of works will start falling into public domain in the coming years.
Star Vin R. Tist is bass guitarist with the Retired, originally the backing group for Manny Dedd. Dedd's and the Retired's copyrights will start to expire when they hit the 50-year mark in 2009.
"It's scary," Tist said during a 37-date sold-out tour of the United Kingdom. "I only became aware of the situation last year
Against this background, it is not surprising that the extension of the term of duration of copyrights is the publishing industry's main priority on the legislative agenda in Europe.
The EU is reviewing its past directives on imaginary property, notably the EU Term of Protection scheme directive. With this in mind, trade body the Federation United of Artist Leeching Lawyers (FU-ALL) last year asked the European Commission for an extension of Term of Protection scheme for producers and artists with the goal of extending copyright beyond the international norms and doing so retroactively, as was done in the United States.
The FU-ALL has started a campaign to raise awareness among policy manipulators and legislators on the issue. It targets EU member states, the EC and the Parliament.
"We are using any opportunity we have to highlight the issue during meetings with the commission and MEPs," said Brussels-based FU-ALL senior propaganda executive Cammi Paine-Trubutor.
Looters/Billhoard
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Er, yeah, so UK citizens are subject to US law now? Sorry, doesn't work that way. If a country decides copyright doesn't even exist within its borders, then it doesn't. US law can't dictate what other countries do, no matter how much they wish it could.
This boil-up may or may not cause the UK to change their laws, at least for now. But what is going to happen when it comes time for the music of The Beatles to be affected by this? If these laws aren't changed now, this flap is just going to occur again then, and probably with a lot more fervor.
Don't get me wrong here, I am for keeping the laws the way they are. I just see a lot more controversy looming in the future.
I am an Indie film maker. most of my films have either indie music in them, after I secured both the song's and sync rights to it. But I also use a large amount od public domain music. A good example is a film that we are currently shooting. A period piece about irish in colonial america. we re-record many of those irish tunes with local artists who gladly give up their sync rights to the songs we ask them to play/record.
So I guess I am one of those horrible and EVIL people that are using the music of these poor helpless and dead songwriters who's property is being mercilessly ripped from them by the tax collectors so I can subvert their music, image and make them horribly poor and make their families suffer.
I am an Evil evil person.
Maybe I should go to corperate jail.. anyone know whereI should turn myself in?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"If someone creates a work and doesn't want to share it with me, that's their business. What if Disney made Mickey Mouse and then threw it away? Oh well, I can't stop them."
And their work will NEVER enter public domain. Copyright only protects work that is distributed.
"And yes, 50 years is a balance too. I never suggested otherwise, that's why I left it "X"."
But you also said...
"And all this makes the "X years plus life of author" make sense, I suppose. It's a balance."
How about 1 year then? That too is "a balance".
"I think probably the most important thing is stability. Investors will get scared if the government doesn't protect old copyrights as much as they do new copyrights because it's an indicator that they might not protect new copyrights as much as old copyrights."
What "investors" are you talking about?
"Stability is very important when it involves something as fundamental as property rights. We can't change copyright law around every few years because of a change of public opinion, because changing copyright protection is, in and of itself, bad for the economy."
How so is changinge copyright protection "bad for the economy"?
Don't get me wrong--I think the idea that content owners should be able to milk profits from decades-old work done by a deceased person is ludicrous. But it's not nearly as damaging to society and culture as a whole as keeping everything else out of the public domain just to satisfy a few copyright-holding freeloaders.
The copyright on sound recordings expires 50 years after publication. The copyright on the text, considered a work in itself, only expires 70 years after the death of the maker.
So while a sound will expire, the song as recorded is a modification of the original text, and thus still protected. Samples of the song can be used freely, the whole song is still copyrighted.
the pun is mightier than the sword
This is my aesthetic response to an annoying pop star who did little other than be famous for not being attractive in the company of someone who portrayed airhead/skank/easy. Comedic contrast. It was funny that they couldn't sing but tried anyway - it was satire to some members of the audience. If you and I cannot agree on what the performance was - how are we likely to quantify it's value?
Artforms meld with one another very readily, making it difficult to understand exactly how the proportions of each incorprated element affect the audience. Ask yourself what a video has to do with a song and you'll see a facet of what I mean. Is that Marketing the product or is it actually the Product - because second ago the song was the product. You can see how an accountant would be pulling hairs trying to departmentalize the beans, what about a legislator trying to ANTICIPATE tomorrow's perceptions of What Art Is?
Sono Bono:Fledgling TV industry ;) And no one can really stand that "I got you babe" song unless they just fell in love last week.
Tell me the recording industry has a good track record in ANY facet of it's business and I'll call you a liar. In Sony's 15 minutes the industry was still slavering over the profit of The Silver Beatles. Perhaps Sony's insight is corrupt because he was a young star. He brought a "valid" insight indeed - but a balanced insight??? Stars are/were INTENSELY Catered-To heavily at some point in their development. Perhaps his drive was flawed by his experience - he ended up a politician remember
The point is that copywriting aesthetic 'products' AND enforcing the law is a difficult thing to do. When's the last time a band paid royalties for playing a cover song live? It is illegal you know. Perhaps there is no product except the media that art is pressed into and the other products that spin the media and amplify and project the contents.
Stuff that matters.
The Proms this year is celebrating English music, and the crossroads it reached in 1934 - Elgar, Holst and Delius died in 1934, while Peter Maxwell Davis and Harrison Birtwhistle were born in 1934.
It would be a great tribute to Elgar, Delius and Holst if, as their music comes out of copyright at the end of this year, their work was to truly enter teh public domain - the Mutopia project springs to mind.
Sadly, it will be another 15 years before Vaughan WIlliams enters the public domain, as I want to use some of his sacred music, but the royalties quoted by the copyright holder are too much.
Dunstan
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
Copyright, in my estimation has never been about the individual. The government doesnt write laws for individuals, it writes them for society at large. These laws were originally intended to make sure that authors kept creating content, not to make them rich. They were protecting society both from a lack of innovation and from losing their ability to build off of their cultural past. An idea the US govenment has obviously overlooked or given up upon. Maybe they dont want us to remember the past, like a Brave New World, consume, consume, consume...
This isnt about protecting an authors ability to indefinitely maintain ownership, its about assuring authors that if they write something new for some period of time they will be protected in the name of promoting progress for the community. The U.K. has it right, 50 years is fair and this is not about protecting individuals.
I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)
"I think probably the most important thing is stability. Investors will get scared if the government doesn't protect old copyrights as much as they do new copyrights because it's an indicator that they might not protect new copyrights as much as old copyrights."
I don't follow the logic there. You're suggesting that because we have a sensible law that means that copyright expires after 50 years, "investors" will think that a copyright which is 5 years old is "not as protected?"
Here's the point: laws should not be written around the whims of "investors."
I know it's a hard point to get in today's world where it seems that large corporations might as well just bypass the whole legislature and write the darn statutes themselves (simply because it saves time and does away with the pretence that our representatives can think for themselves) but it is the critical point here.
Sometimes laws are not made to "help the economy", they're written because they're morally the better course of action. Copyright is not a right, it's a privilege extended by government to afford a balance between the creator of a work and those who may become dependent upon it.
If these corporations and lobbying groups are now complaining that they "didn't know" that this time limit was approaching and that it's an awful shame as despite the fact that the artist is long dead, they're still able to part people with their money then I suggest that they hire better advisors. It's not as if the 50 year time period was a closely guarded secret now is it?
...of it, is that its not the existence of copyright that drives creativity and innovation, but the expiration of them. Disney, for example, would probably work a lot harder to make new, interesting and lovable characters and stories if they knew that their current stable was about to be released. A author who wanted to continue having an income would be more likely to write new stories if he knew that the royalty checks from his twenty-year old best-seller were about to stop...
What?
Disney was built on works in the public domain -- Snow White, Pinocchio, Cinderella, The Jungle Book, etc.
"Dave, I stand still--the conclusions jump to me!" - Bill McNeal, NewsRadio
What is truely scary is finding out that the recordings of Cliff Richard and the Shadows will be entering the public domain pretty soon.
Please! Please EU! Extend copyrights to death plus a 1000 years ASAP!!!!
What's sadly missing is a discussion of the DAMAGE done to society since people cannot create derivitive works. Imagine for a minute if Walt Dizney could not make movies of Cinderella, Peter Pan, Scrooge, and other historicial fiction whose copyright has expired. Why is it that they can build on the works of others, but not allow others to build on their works? If they were _truly_ interested in defending copyright, they would find the descendents of these works and pay them the "outrageous" royalties that they would deserve. But WD doesn't do this, they waot all the way till Mouse is about to expire and _then_ lobby to extend copyright (otherwise, they'd have to pay back royalties on Fantasia's music).
After all, the US constitution calls for a limited monopoly, both in nature and duration, to promote the advancement of the arts and sciences... to encourage people to publish music.
I think that Elvis got all the encourgement he neaded. I think the Beatles have been amply encouraged. I don't see any reason for the US law to remain in conflict with European law *and* the US constitution indefinitely.
Isn't copyright a means of seeking a balance between the creator's right to enjoy the fruits of his labor and society's ability to build upon that work?
Compare copyright to patents. Why is a patent (in the US) limited to 20-odd years? Because society stands to benefit from the short terms of the patent. Many generic drugs (Ibuprophen, for example) are so commonly available because the patent expired. What if the patent terms were 90 years? How much more would we pay?
[Perhaps we would not pay as much as we do for intra-patent drugs because the drug makers would have a longer timeline to recoop their investment?]
Let's expand this discussion a bit wider. What if the Colt revolver enjoyed a 90 year patent instead of a 20 year patent? Why, Colt could rest on his laurels for the rest of his life while the rest of the century paid him a premium price for an innovative-but-flawed design. Or, the invention of the steam locomotive. What if that patent had prevented improvements on the design, and derivative developments? Or, the invention of the telegraph had been extended such that the telephone (voice-over-telegraph) wasn't invented until the early 20th Century? Would we even have an Internet today, or a Slashdot to *freely* exchanged these ideas?
Patents and copyrights are a legalized monopoly to reward innovators. They are meant to be short-term because innovation feeds itself. Society is benefited by innovation. Overlong rights stifles innovation.
I've read discussions of the economic benefit to be had by allowing BFPs (Big Publishers) have multi-generational copyrights. I'm a BFP, so my ability to create an industry off of generation's old creativity and then strangle any competition is a societal economic benefit? How long can I prevent somebody from reproducing stuffed rats?
Or, in another realm. Look at the Gutenberg Project. They are hindered from digitizing over a generation of out-of-print works. Nobody is economically benefiting from the books being suppressed from the Public Domain. Society might be repressed from benefiting from the knowledge.
I mean, if the GP is able to take a rare out-of-print book and make it available to the masses via their on-line archival, is this not benefiting society? What if I download an old book from their archival, and reading it spurs me to write the Great American Novel--spinning off a whole deluge of movies and mini-series, book tours, etc? As a member of society, isn't this an economic boon that is stifled by too-long copyrights?
Wouldn't it be great if the USG bothered to fund the GP in such an effort?
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
The copyright law being mentioned here is the one regarding mechanical copyrights, i.e. the rights to a physical recording. These rights in the UK apply 50 years after the end of the calendar year in which the recording was first issued, no matter where in the world that recording was first issued. In the case of a recording that has not been commercially issued, the mechanical copyright expires 50 years after the end of the calendar year in which the recording was made.
There are numerous record companies in Europe issuing compilations under these rules. For example last week I went looking for a Charlie Parker compilation, and I must have seen around 10 different such albums, all containing similar tracks, in one store alone. The packaging and annotation of these issues varied accordingly, from very shoddy (misspelt titles and no cover photograph) to a 40 page illustrated booklet with full session listings.
There are a few labels with a reputation for making quality album, some even better that the label with the full rights to such recordings - labels such as JSP for Blues, Proper for Jazz, Blues and Country, and Naxos Historical for Classical. The original label, though, have the advantage as the alternate takes usually expire many years later, as their original year of issue was usually many years after the initial recording.
I believe the law in Spain is slightly different, as there's a Spanish label called Definitive who have recently issued some recordings from 1954. These have appeared in some UK stores, even though their contents don't expire until the end of the year.
The copyright rules regarding music publishing expire 50 years after the composer deaths, so the composers' estates will still be getting paid.
Copyright protection isn't a privilege, unless you start with the assumption that nobody has the right to publish anything unless the government specifically says so. That's not true, at least not in the US or UK. Rather, copyright is a restriction imposed on everybody other than the copyright holder. But more than that, it is a Contract between the copyright holder and the public. The public pays for the government to protect the material for a limited time, and at the end of that time the public gets free access to the material. That eventual free access is the payoff to the public, in exchange for the expense of maintaining and enforcing the copyright system.
The copy-making industry, which has largely turned into a rights-control industry, takes the very different position that the only thing the public is ever entitled to is the privilege of paying to use whatever material is offered, under whatever conditions are imposed by the rights holder. This is a new and one-sided philosophy, which does not reflect the way copyright was ever meant to function.
What's wrong with the US Congress extending copyright for the entire useful life of the material is that the public essentially gets nothing of value when the copyright expires. That's assuming that Congress ever actually does let copyrights expire from now on. The US Supreme Court has specifically ruled that "a limited time" can mean "forever" if Congress says so.