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UK Copyright Extension Not Happening
chiark writes "In a surprising move (surveys said that the public supports extending copyright), the UK will not extend copyright to 95 years following a recent study. Back when this was was covered on slashdot last year, I wrote to my MP and thought no more of it, but recently a UK thinktank has called for fair use to be enshrined in UK Law. Looks like the government is realizing that the public are the ones that vote 'em in or out." From the article: "Sir Cliff Richard and Jethro Tull had been among artists lobbying for copyright to last 95 years, rather than the present 50. The decision means that from 2008 Sir Cliff's earliest recordings will start to come out of copyright. "
I think the way to solve both problems (creators keeping copyright and it not being abused for too long) is to make it last 50 years OR until the death of the creator of the work. This way, creators who are still alive do not feel cheated like they do currently (after all, they made it), but the timeframe is not extended in all cases, so the work still enters public domain if the author has passed away and 50 years expired.
From the article:
'Music journalist Neil McCormack told BBC Radio Five Live it was a blow to the industry..."You can make a record in 1955 and have been getting royalties... been living on that and suddenly they're gone."'.
Well yep - honestly if you haven't done anything else in 50 years it probably should be gone too. In a not especially long amount of time, some Beatles stuff will be coming out of copyright. Now I'm no Beatles expert, but it seems to me that absolutely all of them went on to do more work elsewhere and didn't just sit back living off their early work. I see that statement as a good thing, not as a 'blow to the industry'.
Be interesting to compare and contrast with film - what's the UK limit on film copyrights?
Cheers,
Ian
Cliff Richard will need another extension in a few decades
"The review was conducted for Chancellor Gordon Brown by Andrew Gowers, a former editor of the Financial Times.
His first big hit was Move It, recorded in 1958, when he was hailed as the British Elvis."
OMG, Gordon Brown was hailed as the "British Elvis"! Who knew?
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
Surely they can renew their copyrights for another 50 years. Wouldn't that solve everything?
Yeah! Who is Jethro Tull and why is it so goddamn hard to use a search engine or ask type that name into wikipedia?!
I always thought that the whole idea of copyright law was basically to make sure that people who create things, whatever they may be, have the opportunity to profit from their time and effort. Given the previous statement, I have to admit that I feel fifty years is a pretty good run, and whatever royalties the aforementioned _might_ lose because of this expiration will be relatively small. They'll just have to go without that fourth ferrari.
Is this just a case of really poor journalism or is there some provision of UK copyright law that foreits the life of the author in the duration of copyright when they transfer the ownership of the work or something? Cause I'm looking at the UK copyright act here and it says life + 50 years, and apparently in '97 there was an EU-wide ammendment that made that life + 70 years. I thought this recent news story was about people complaining that they can't have life + 95 years and when their kids grow up they'll ask for life + 125 years, and so on. As for the people who "make their living" from collecting royalties on songs their dear old dad sang back in the 50's, cry me a freakin' river.
How we know is more important than what we know.
The purpose of copyright is to encourage creation of new works. Anything more than 10 years (in my view) is actually counterproductive. Derivative works are stymied by the monopoly the original creator has. Sure, you can negotiate and pay big dollar to license a derivative work. But, for example, had Disney been the original creator of "Alice in Wonderland" you can bet that the video game "Alice" would never have been made.
Brits here should check out the petition for private copying on 10 Downing Street's website. It's essentially asking that the government do what the think tank suggested.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
If you listen really really carefully, you can hear a faint cheer from the 2 people that A) listen to Cliff Richard and Jethro Tull and B) have mastered P2P music sharing.
That was a direct quote from Lars Ulrich from when Tull got the Grammy everyone thought Metallica would get, dude. There's some kind of weird poetic justice here.
Who the fuck is "Jethro Tull"?
Some guy who invented some new type of plough in the early 1700s.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
LOL what's Cliff Richard worried about? A mass copying and sale of his out-of-copyright works?
Yeah, I can see us all itching to queue at the record store or download them on MP3, surely after 50 years anyone who really wants these records has them and the average age of his fanbase is 70 anyway.
So don't worry about the critical state of fish stocks in the North sea or China's out of control waste dumping into the environent or the eroding ice shelfs. Just f\/cking worry about a few missed sales of Living Doll for God's sake.
[SHUDDER]
And what's up with Jethro Tull, hippies showing their true colors? I think they should make an exception for them. Nobody wants to listen to their shit, I'd pay good money never to hear any JT again.
So, which is it?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Yeah! Who is Jethro Tull and why is it so goddamn hard to use a search engine or ask type that name into wikipedia?!
Whooosh! Grammy, Metallica, Hello?
The seed drill, actually. Instead of broadcasting seed by hand, it always placed seeds a set distance in the ground, increasing yield substantially. I suppose it has vaguely suggestive connotations...
Oh save us, Cliff Richards, the people's poet!
Skip ------ See the latest from http://www.anArchyFortWorth.com
Then people will start putting themselves in suspended animation when they are near death so that the copyright will never expire.
"Her idea of wit is nothing more than an incisive observation humorously phrased and delivered with impeccable timing."
Errr Jethro Tull the inventor of the seed drill died several hundred years ago. Hardly in a position to lobby for a copyright extension.
Jethro Tull is somewhat well known 60s band (not a person)... and one of the greats, imo. If you want to attach a name to them it would be Ian Anderson, the frontman/flautist.
The pro-copyright crowd loves to scream "theft" when the crime is technically copyright infringement and even though a person has a new copy, the original copy owner hasn't lost possession of his copy.
But here I think "theft" is the right term.
These works were published and purchased under the terms of copyright at the time - that after a specified number of years ownership would transfer to the public domain - we would all own it.
When copyrights are unilaterally extended, as has been the case many times recently, the public is deprived of the ownership that they were promised under the original agreement. In this case, we have something that is tangibly missing - public ownership of the work and I think that fits the definition of theft far better than making copies does.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Does that mean the copyright on, for example, Mickey Mouse is expired and it's considered public domain in the UK? Or is that copyrighted in the US and the UK agrees to honor our terms? If it's the latter, what separates the creation of a UK copyright from a US copyright? I'm under the impression there's no formal paperwork that needs to occur for copyright like there is a patent.
Whoa, Metallica is actually a MUSIC GROUP now?
Ten years for a flat fee. Then you can extend in periods of 12 months, with each extension costing double what the previous one did. Maximum 20 years. Otherwise, by the 30th year or so, it's cheaper just to buy a new government.
copyright should not apply to personal use, period. Can we have a law that has some relationship to its enforcability please? Here's a litle experiment for ya:
Go see your mother (you should anyway), have a look through her CD/DVD/sewing pattern collection (which she has depends on age of your mother), pick one you like and ask "can I have a copy of this?" I absolutely guarentee she will say "yes." If she doesn't, it's probably because you never visit her.
Now I ask you, if a law exists that everyone's Mom is willing to break, what the hell kind of society are we living in?
How we know is more important than what we know.
This applies only to music recordings, not to copyrights in general. For other works (such as the musical compositions and lyrics themselves), the rule in the UK is that copyrights last for the life of the creator plus 70 years. Although the recordings of the Beatles' early recordings may become PD in the UK in 2013, even if Paul were to choke on a stalk of brocolli tomorrow morning, all those Lennon-McCartney compositions would still be copyrighted until 2077, and until then you wouldn't be able to make copies of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" without paying composition royalties to... well... Michael Jackson, I guess.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
This summary contradicts itself. How is this an example of "the government realizing that the public are the ones that vote 'em in or out" when there were "surveys said that the public supports extending copyright" and Parliament then did not extend copyright to 95 years?
... to quote a song title from Jethro Tull.
... mutter mutter ... it was one of those protected 'CDs'. So I stuck it in my pc (Windows 2000 with Cdex) and sucked it out to ogg. And then went to the web site and sent a message off telling Ian Anderson what I thought of the copy protection scheme.
:-(
A few years ago I bought another CD in my quest to get the complete collection of Jethro Tull. Got it home and it wouldn't play in my car
'The Tull' still make great music, but they seem a bit confused of the whole where we are now. They seem to be a bunch of 'Heavy Horses' - beautiful things but outdated
Extending copyright has some advantages, but disadvantages as well - how many musicians started off signing their soul away to the record company to discover that the record company own their work. Changing record companies can mean that they can't include a recording of theirs in their greatest hits (I'm reminded of a hit of Donovan's "Catch the Wind" that had to be rerecorded for a greatest hits CD). Having stuff slide out of copyright means that those 'souless' musicians can reclaim their music. Of course those that have been able to retain the ownership of that are likely to protect what they can to the detriment of the greater public, and ultimately themselves.
Just my highly opinionated thoughts.
Just checked Wikipedia, according to which we are both correct. He invented the seed drill and ...
I think it was actually the hoe I was thinking of, having seen a pic of some such thing in a history book way back at school ... which was about the same time that Jethro Tull were having their hay day.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
I hope the lawmakers eventually realize how much that fair use contributes to the value of the content. How content's value after a generation, when pop can pass into folk (or disappear), is created at least as much by the people sharing it as by the people creating it.
And I hope they then consider the American founders who created an artificial monopoly "to promote progress in science and the useful arts" as temporary, a concession of some freedom to the reality of capitalism. The reality of 1700s capitalism, which took a lot longer for inventors to recoup their risky investment than in the Internet Age.
Then, I hope, they recognize that the past couple of centuries of promoting progress in science and the useful arts have created a world where copyrights can last even less than the original 17 years, a human generation. And even carve out exceptions to copyright that not only accommodate freedom and less risky investments in invention, but serve to promote, rather than retard, that progress.
Useful innovation in copyright law. That would promote progress.
--
make install -not war
Oh great, now I've got "Decomposing Composers" by Monty Python stuck in my head.
I'd hum a few bars, but the Copyright Cops would take me away.
Lyrics here if anyone is interested.
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
When it comes to Cliff Richard and Jethro Tull, I think the British government should make an exception. The last thing I want to hear is someone covering their songs - having to listen to the originals is painful enough.
Please, in the name of all that's holy - extend their copyrights!
#DeleteChrome
It seems to me the idea (piece of music, recording, whatever) is not and cannot be property (at least not in the sense that physical objects or land can be property). The copyright itself - i.e., the limited-time monopoly created and enforced by the government - is the property. Let me emphasize that: the property here is created by the government. As an encouragement for artists and others to produce ideas, society rewards them by creating a kind of property and granting it to them. Society moreover provides resources for the enforcement of that property right. But the right is time limited: after a certain period, society no longer recognizes or enforces the right it previously granted.
Think of it like this. You write a song. You take that song to the government, and they give you a document stating that you have an exclusive right to copy and perform that song for the next N years. The song may not be property, but the document certainly is: its ownership is enforced by the law, you can sell it, and so forth. When those N years are up, you still have the document, but the rights in conferred have expired. Did anyone take anything away from you? On the contrary, they gave you something. Oh, and incidentally, you still have the song you wrote.
These days there's no document proving your rights; the grant is automatic. I don't know if there ever was such a document, although filing used to be required. The point is, copyright is a social construct, and the right is property. Ideas, on the other hand, are not.
Oh Cliff, sometimes it must be difficult to feel as if, you really are a cliff... when facists keep trying to push you over it! Are they the lemmings or are you Cliff, or are you Cliff?
Just read your statements regarding copyright extensions. I think it's way off.
The arts are for the people. ALL of the people. You became an artist not because you wanted to make money, but because you enjoyed the arts and because you enjoy that other people appreciate your arts as well. The money is a means of survival and maybe a bit more.
More than that, when you started creating recordings for profit, you did so under the knowledge and assumption that there were limits to copyright. It was your social contract with the world that you would gain benefit under that agreement with the promise and obligation that you would release your art to the world when the time is up. To go back on that agreement is less than honorable.
Breakfast served all day!
All of this is of course ten-plus years away itself. After all, we just saw a fresh Zune full of TurboCopyright emerge to great cheer by all ... industry professionals. I'm dying to see First Quarter results of sales to non-Christmas people.
... not quite impressive. But 14 years from now the incalculable cultural wealth of the 1960's would be opened up.
Since I know for a fact we'll never see 25 year terms, I won't bother to wish for them. Plus, I am sure there are stories lurking about how it took more than 25 years of negotiations for movie deals to get offered, dropped, stalled, etc.
The big thing the xxAA types are terrified of is horrible commercialization of their former corporate bastions. We all like to trumpet "the honest artist" but there's a real concern that some jerk ad firm will just start pitching cereal to kids with Mickey Mouse. "Why not? It's Public Domain".
IF we somehow magically limited ourselves to "literary uses", I could live with 50 years. From today, that would make it 1958
The preview word for this post is Conserve.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Yeah, and that's the problem with copyright law, people think it exists to "reward artists" or something.
In America, most of the people I get into conversations with about copyright are utterly clueless about the intent of copyright. What I find most amusing/sad, is that the very people who bark loudest about the rights of copyright owners are usually the folks who are most surprised that the "moral right of the creator" argument stems from the Berne Convention, and was until quite recently vigorously avoided in the United States. They get downright surly when I tell them they're parroting a notion first advanced by Victor Hugo. As interpreted today, creativity flows out of the copyright holder without any influence, guidance, inspiration, or support from the larger culture. Every artist is an island.
I shouldn't be suprised by this, I suppose. We're usually quite unwilling to do anything these days on behalf of collective good, if it in any way denies the individual the right to pursue maximum greed. After all, it's right there in the Constitution. ;-)
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I've seen Anderson quoted as saying they changed their name regularly in the early days because the were so bad they couldn't get gigs for very long under the same name. "Jethro Tull" just happened to be the one they were using when they hit it big. Don't underestimate Anderson; he's a _very_ good businessman, perhaps a little to the ruthless side judging from the revolving door appearance of the band's lineup.
(Nice login, BTW. (We just got back from Santa Fe (ouch...)))
Oh great, now I've got "Decomposing Composers" by Monty Python stuck in my head.
I'm afraid there's not much anyone can do for that.
(The reference is somewhat cheapened by the fact that the poster linked to the lyrics...)
I am completely against "3 year terms" etc.
This is not about giving some teenagers mp3's and telling them to propigate them far and wide. The big bucks are in movies, and those take years to organize. Then if a snag occurs, it gets delayed another decade. See for example the new Superman movie. Regardless of your opinion, the one thing the makers could be sure of was the stability of the copyright term while they struggled to make the movie.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
"Theft" is a fair term, but I think "Piracy" is even better.
Pirates (on the high seas - with the various missing limbs, gold-lust and parrot-shit stains down their backs) essentially stop a cargo from reaching its destination, taking it for themselves.
The extenders of copyright do the same - prevent various artistic works from reaching their destination - the public domain. Ergo, (perpetual (and we all know they're perpetual)) Copyright Extensions are Piracy.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Never heard of Sir Cliff Richard and Jethro Tull before. Perhaps I live in a small corner of Europe.
One thing is sure, they should get shot both for even coming up with idea of extending copyright time.
The Reg article is clearly biased but does raise the obvious suspicion I have about the government survey. More than anything it highlights the ignorance of the British public towards IP-related matters.
The fact that this was an online poll means that it's not scientific, the results totally depend on what sites they put the question on and what sorts of people decided to respond.
Also the way the question was phrased: should [UK recording artists] be protected for the same number of years as their American counterparts?is a blatantly biased way of asking the question. Sounds like they wanted to drum up some phony polls to present to parliament, and it sounds like they're not buying it.
"To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it." -- Olin Miller
Which perhaps highlights that there are wider patterns in the way that broken laws/treaties/politics are being
crafted to suit specific interests while basically breaking democratic systems overall.
This conception is both atomistic and unrelational. It takes the form of individual security-seeking practices that are self-defeating and in a profound sense oxymoronic (Loader 1997b), an 'expression of the desire for sovereign agency' (Markell 2003: 22) that depends upon and projects a semblance of security produced by lifting oneself out of co-existence with others in order to render one's own existence less contingently vulnerable and the future more predictable. These practices are often at the same time exercises of private power. They eschew democratic political life in order to achieve 'distributive outcomes according to one's assets, skills and preferences' (Offe 2003: 450) in a manner corrosive of the forms of trust and solidarity upon which any sustainable notion of the public good of security draws and, in its turn, replenishes. Neo-liberalism remains committed, in other words, to forms of security that 'organize the world in ways that make it possible for certain people to enjoy an imperfect simulation of the invulnerability they desire, leaving others to bear a disproportionate share of the costs and burdens involved in social life' (Markell 2003: 22).
http://libertysecurity.org/article232.html
Well, the way Ian puts it he should also pay some money to the living relatives of the guy invented the flute, the records, the microphone and all other things he used to make music.
In life we all benefit from the stuff that other people who lived before us created, why wouldn't Ian want to return the favor?
I just wrote the greatest song ever. I'm going to keep it to myself though, I don't want other people selling it in 50 years time. Shame.
You stole it!
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Instead of modding parent as informative (which it is), it might be fairer to mod the greatgrandparent as underrated, since the guy's too clever joke got him unfairly modded as a troll
s/Shame\./Good!/
Ironic that Ian Anderson named his band after Jethro Tull, who pioneered scientific agricultural methods, (like planting food in rows) and many improved tools. If Tull had doggedly protected HIS intellectual property, we would still be using the same tech we did in 1700.
Someone explain how this serves mankind?
Times have changed; Anderson needs to get with them. It's just not the age of vinyl any more ...
..." LP with the CD update. Then I read Anderson's diatribe. IMHO he's just being greedy; I think now I'll just go download what I want.
Speaking of which, I had been planning to replace my old, nearly worn-through old "MU: the Best of
Now there's ANOTHER artist that I have to hate, even though I used to like their music.
The NEW list:
1. Metallica
2. Aimee Mann
3. Alanis Morissette
4. Christina Aguilera
5. Blink-182
6. Sarah McLachlan
7. Garth Brooks
8. Jethro Tull
When will these idiots learn that they are only ALIENATING any of their fans with decent usage of the cerebellum and a modicum of news reading?
OK, actually, seriously, after looking at that list again, I realized that each of those artists was probably the worst in their field, so maybe by losing all their educated fans, they're actually doing society a favor.
IDIOTS. If you can't make a living PLUS retirement with a 50 year copyright, then you are obviously shitty and most likely a moron.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Exactly. And this is why the likes of Jethro Tull and Cliff Richard, Disney, and other prominent copyright holders, should not be allowed to be the excuse for across-the-board extensions in copyright terms. They only own a tiny niche of the entire copyright-able work that's out there, and making massive changes just so a small minority of successful copyright owners can keep their monopoly benefits hardly anyone.
I couldn't care less about Disney's works, or about Cliff Richard's works. They still make their work available at reasonable prices for people who actually want them. What does irritate me is when continuous copyright extensions prevent lots of the valuable work that isn't being re-published from being reproduced by people who want to keep making it available for society. In many cases, the copyright owners are difficult to locate, or aren't interested enough to bother with releasing copyrighted works. To make sure that society gets paid back for the artificial fixed term monopoly, copyright expiration is very important.
If a niche of copyright owners care so much about their work, then the laws should instead be changed to allow for only those creators who care to extend the copyright on their work. Let copyright holders apply for extensions if they want to keep their rights. Ironically this is exactly how the US did it in the first place, and that's when they had it right. A useful addition might be to require that copyright holders also demonstrate that they're making the work they hold available to society for reasonable commissions.
Actually, the government surveys are often completely wrong. The Home Office ran a survey about ID cards and found "overwhelming public support", yet the Scottish Parliament and most councils in England and Wales have voted to boycott them. Also, the BBC ran a survey where 80% voted against ID cards....in two separate polls.
Its not ignorance. Its the government twisting the facts.
Oh how my heart bleeds over these impoverished souls. Sir Cliff, Sir Mick Jagger, Sir Elton John: Where were you when thousands of coal miners, steel workers, and the rest of us peasants were made redundant in the name of Thatcherism? Well the boot's on the other foot now guys: YOU are now redundant. Pick up your P45s on the way out. As one of your own once sang, "The times they are a-changing..".
but there's a real concern that some jerk ad firm will just start pitching cereal to kids with Mickey Mouse.
But if that is the worry, does copyright have to be extended indefinitely in order to prevent that?
(Also, that may be a trademark issue.)
Did Cliff write any of the words in the song? No.
Did Cliff write a single note of the music? No.
Did Cliff even change his voice when singing the song? Probably not.
So why the hell should he expect any royalties when he didn't make any form of artistic contribution to the work. Cliff needs to stop whining and start producting something creative if he wants royalties.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
The fact that the poll is online or offline is irrelevant as to whether it was conducted "scientifically". "Scientific" methodologies can be applied both online and offline. I can generate a well made poll online, and equally I can ask a right bunch of tosh in door to door interviews in person.
I think you might mean "accurate" or "well designed" not "scientific" but hey let's not go there.
At the risk of sounding like an itsatrap tag abuser that situation sounds like entrapment to me!
I think that, by default, all information should go to the public domain after a fairly short period of, say 5 years after publication. The duration has to be less than the typical half-life period of the media and data formats involved, otherwise stuff can too easily get lost before it gets legal to shift to and distribute in current data formats. After all, getting more stuff eventually into the public domain IS the stated purpose of copyright law.
If someone wishes to retain copyright privileges for a longer time, say up to 25 years after publication, which is half the current limit and more than enough to allow the author (in reality: the media companies) for reasonable compensation, then it should be required to submit the work in a specified digital format to a public database which is there to make sure that the work is readily available to the public after the copyright has expired.
The cost for such a database could be covered by a yearly fee from the copyright holders. After all, they get a prolonged state sanctioned monopoly over the work at the expense of everyone else. It's only fair for society to expect something in return. Also, the existence of such a database would greatly simplify the resolvment of legal issues in the enforcement of the granted monopoly.
Jethro Tull is somewhat well known 60s band
They started in the 60s, but had their biggest hits in the 1970s and a Grammy for best hard rock/heavy metal album in the mid/late 1980s (I'd guess 1987). Grammys are certainly no measure of talent, but by both critical acclaim and album sales they're more of a 1970s prog rock/1980s hard rock band than a 60s band.
Also, "somewhat" well known might be a bit of an understatement; having more than one #1 album in the USA (more in the UK) puts you pretty solidly in the well-known category compared to even successful rock outfits. They're certainly not the Beatles, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, or the Stones; they're not quite the Who or the Eagles, but not knowing them is pretty solidly in the "ignorant of 1970s/80s rock" camp. (And I don't endorse the music of the bands I mentioned, I merely mention them as measures of popularity).
rage, rage against the dying of the light
Is there any out of copyright stuff worth getting hold of? I was just wondering whether there's any websites specialising in guiding people to quality? Archive.org is a mess.
Actually, productions are supposed to go public domain sometime.
In reality, historic works are being destroyed daily.
If the caretaker can't take care of them, they should be released.
Take Dr Who and BBC. Works were lost/ taped over. Recently the moon landing tapes were carelessly lost, the list is endless. Live recordings copyright - well actually who has those tapes?
The archives act goes 30 years. Severe financial penalities need to be imposed on custodians not fulfilling their responsibilities. A reasonable test is that unprofitable works be released.
OMGWTF P0NI3Z!!!! They're trying to kill Mickey Mouse!!!
Copyrights should not be engineered to rescue the grossly inept
and inefficient. If a studio can't make a movie without the script
going out of copyright then they deserve any trouble that ensues.
BTW, the movie itself being a derivative work of the script
would have it's own publishing date distinct from that of the
script. IOW, Superman Returns would still have a copyright date
of when it was made.
Also, the "logistical problems" would still prevent a
competing derivative work (IOW, another movie) from being
made of the script in the meantime. Nevermind the fact that
the original script is going to effectively be a trade secret
anyways. (so no real "copyright problem" there anyways).
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
This wouldn't affect existing recordings anyway even if it was enacted into law!
If you introduce a new law, it can't be applied to anything that was done before the law was introduced; and if you introduce a new punishment for an offence, anyone who was sentenced to the old punishment can't be given the new one. That's article 11 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights makes similar provisions and is enshrined in UK law as the Human Rights Act 1998.
A copyright term extension could only be applied to brand-new copyrights. Existing copyrights would not be affected. The holders knew -- and presumably agreed to -- the terms when they created their creative works.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
The BPI (UK equivalent of RIAA) must be over the moon about the FUD surrounding this issue.
All the 50 year rule concerns is the copyright of the SOUND RECORDING and the money the PERFORMERS and COMPANIES get.
The WRITERS of the lyrics and music will still have copyright on the lyrics and music.
Taking the example of Move It sung by Cliff Richard and if it was played on the radio or bought in a shop.
In 2006
Song writer - gets money
Music writer - gets money
Singer - gets money
Muscians - get money
In 2008 (when the recording copyright runs out)
Song writer - gets money
Music writer - gets money
Singer - gets nothing
Musicians - get nothing
Seems fair enough to me...
I think you and I are the only people who get the joke. Oh well. I have been moderated -1 troll before and I will be again. Maybe I should have attributed the quote so the clueless would "get it".
--fatboy
The infamous Copyright Term Extension Act (a.k.a., Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension Act) retroactively extended previous copyrights. Mickey Mouse comes into it because the copyright on the original Mickey cartoons was about to expire before the law was passed. This was challenged in our Supreme Court, but the law was upheld.
In the 1950's Jazz and Swing were popular and many Jazz musicians made good money and saved very little because they thought that there was plenty more to come. Then came the 60's and Rock and Roll. The second string Jazz musicians and swing bands lost their jobs, just when they needed the money to put in a pension plan. Their records were not selling any more so looking to royalties to sustain them in old age was no longer realistic.
I've singled out Jazz because I heard a radio program in which elderly Jazz musicians reminisced about the good old days (the 50's) and giving up music in the lean times (the 60's). Surely it is only a handful of big name artists in any genre who can expect the royalty checks to keep coming after ten or twenty years.
If copyright was cut back to 20 years some big names would not be quite so rich, but copyright is not bankable. Ordinary musicians have to save some money from their early royalty cheques, because the cheques don't keep coming, no matter how long copyright lasts for.
We need 95 year copyright to encourage more creativity among the dead
Unless someone comes up with a hybrid compromise, I think so.
Most companies haven't bothered trying to sell stuff with Tom Swift because the character is so old, it's unuseable. (Except that one has been renewed, but you know.)
We'd like to think public domain materials are only for innocent artists, but public domain = fair game.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Unless someone comes up with a hybrid compromise, I think so.
So should we extend copyright to infinity, now then? After all, people might use public domain material in adverts now. And why should Disney be allowed to rip off all those old fairy tales?
A compromise could be to allow a period of non-commercial use, or say creative commons licence as someone suggested, so it's not under the current strict control of copyright, but isn't public domain.
Or, as I say, trademark law could cover the issue of people misusing Mickey Mouse. I mean, why is it wrong if some jerk uses Mickey Mouse to advertise? I find most ads annoying whoever they use, plus there's the point that we already get this sort of thing anyway, where people or characters are used to advertise things (because they get permission, or they own the copyright themselves), and it's not anymore annoying than ads in general.
Copyright laws aren't made about your preferences. They're made to make corporations money. When a fundamental staple of an intellectual empire is allowed to be used by anyone, that empire will be in big trouble.
Corporations are quite pleased that you find their ad annoying. It tells them that you count as an Exposure. If you've been Exposed enough to be annoyed, then someone else is Exposed enough to buy.
If you "already get this sort of thing in general", it's because the ad firm paid heavily for the license rights to the character. If Mr. Mouse becomes fair game, anyone can use him, and Disney gets... nothing.
The kinds of compromises in your middle paragraph are the ones I wanted the Slashdot Crew to weigh in on.
The preview word is prospers, which is what Copyright laws make sure a Corp does.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine