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UK Copyright Under Fire Again
stupid_is writes "Following on from the story on the Gower Report in the UK, a host of musicians (over 4,500 of them, including poor, starving stars such as U2, Paul McCartney and Peter Gabriel) have taken out a big ad in the FT to back the call for an extension to copyright in the UK. Allegedly, that's what the British public wants — although the survey seems to be asking a different, rather biased, question." From the article: "A spokesman for the Open Rights Group, which campaigns for greater digital rights, said: 'The big music firms have done a good job of persuading some artists to sign up to this but anyone who reads the Gowers review will see it demolishes the arguments for extension. An awful lot of content creators are not represented by this and recognise an extension will do nothing for creativity and nothing for the public.'"
Copyright was instituted for society so work would be created. It was not instituted for the creators. It was instituted to encourage them to create for society. I do not see any evidence that creators are boycotting and refusing to create new works because they "only" have copyright for 50 years.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I know that's an inflammatory statement, but law is supposed to benefit the public. If it doesn't benefit the public then there's no reason for a law to exist.
Copyright benefits the public because it benefits everyone. But extending copyright into eternity benefits only a select few.
I couldn't care less what 4,500 artists want. It's a tiny slice of the population. Why support their greed? I think we can do without U2 anyway :D
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
From Lawrence Lessig's blog:
The question whether they thought UK recording artists "should be protected for the same number of years as their American counterparts" is even more misleading than the article implies. UK recording artists have exactly the same length of copyright IN THE UK as their American counterparts and exactly the same length of copyright IN THE USA as their American counterparts. UK and American recording artists are treated identically in each market. The two markets have different rules but neither discriminates in the way the question implies.
They also weren't asked whether the UK term should be increased or the USA term decreased. Or whether both should be decreased.
That's what the advert says. It's almost correct. Let me fix it.
Fair use for people.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Or will they donate all their posthumous royalties to that AIDS-in-Africa cause that they're always on about?
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
So that I can conveniently never buy _anything_ from them again.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
If I were a musician, I would be honored that so many people are waiting after those 50 years to use my music. The reason I feel this way and Paul doesn't is that he's going down in history as the one of the greatest singer/songwriters of all time no matter how long the copyright is held on that song. I'm not.
But why, in God's name would he want them extended to 95 years? Well, he made quite a bit of music after the Beatles & has been touring with that on and off. Some of it good & some of it quite bad. Either way, if he wants to cash out one last time before he kicks it, the rights to those songs will fetch much more if the buyers have them for 65 more years as opposed to 20 more years.
So that's what it's coming down to, not this 'fair play' bullshit. Paul's not hoping to be playing his music fairly after he dies
Who knows why they claim to need this money. Especially U2, that actually shocks me. Bono used to be all about people and to hell with money. I guess that isn't true anymore though he might try to show that he wants to keep making money to help people in a country less fortunate. At least he's got that going for him.
I saw an interview with Paul once where he basically said, "Yeah, I sold Michael Jackson the rights to these songs
My work here is dung.
Survival in the long term surely means reliable provision of future wealth, such as a pension. The creator needs to know that they're going to survive, rather than survive if they get lucky. Besides, to encourage serious, honest art, you need to encourage the artist to take risks that they might never be popular. Long term copyright doesn't do that.
Property is both an individual right and a social concept. There are forms of property that are not recognised because to do so would bring more harm than good. For example: patents beyond a certain period of time.
Wikileaks, no DNS
What is increasingly at risk here is the very important connection between a "right" to protection in law and the reason for the existance of that right.
The protection of copyright (and other IP forms for that matter) is intended to provide a reward to those who would contribute to the public good; to culture, society, the fine arts and our understanding of the human condition.
To this extent there is a good basis for creating a social contract whereby we protect in our courts of law the creative work of an individual from being passed off as the work of another, or modified in a way that misrepresents a work or distributed for free where that is not what the creator wants.
What they are arguing for now in the UK is the difference not between no protection and protection but between one degree of protection (its duration) and another. Importantly, though, they are using the arguments for and against protection in the debate about the degree of protection. That is a mis-use of the reasons for protection which provide no clear guidance in their favour here.
Given a 95 year term over a 50 year term are we motivated to be 90% more creative? Are great works of fiction or music not written on the grounds that they will *only* be protected for 50 years and not the all important 90 years? Fifty years represents a term in which the creator gets to benefit from their work but also then that society, in a meaningful time frame, gets to benefit culturally from the full propagation (not based on economic means) of a work throughout that society.
It's important also to note that a longer, stricter term of protection fails to acknowledge that all creation is based on the work of those that have gone before us. The true "originality" of a work is of course mollifed by the influences that it has taken. It is only right that creators accept their place in that great progression and let their work eventually also pass into the public domain to be recognised as the influence for more works that help society's culture to flourish.
A shorter copyright protection term could surely only encourage investment in new songs, new books, new acts rather than taking the easy route of holding on to back catalogues that are continuously re-released. Back catalogues are of course another source of irritation since the availability of most music that has been made and of most books ever written in the stores is extremely limited.
The creators of tomorrow would live in a poorer world if proprietary protection for what is, after all, our shared culture was extended arbitrarily to suit the present generation.
Paul knows a lot about this last part after suing the other Beatles for many of the McLennon songs & subsequently selling them to Michael Jackson.
Paul McCartney sued the Beatles to dissolve their partnership because he objected to the other 3 naming Allen Klein as their manager over his objections. Not only did Paul win in court, he was proven right that Allen Klein was a bad choice. Paul McCartney NEVER sued the Beatles over songs he wrote. Making that up doesn't make it true.
Sigh. Again, you are wrong. Paul McCartney NEVER sold his songs to Michael Jackson. In the late 1960s, the Beatles (yes ALL FOUR OF THEM) agreed to sell their music publishing company specifically to raise money to start Apple Corporation. George and Ringo owned only minority stakes in Maclen Publishing (a.k.a. Northern Songs in the good ol' USA), but all four agreed. Sir Lew Grade bought the publishing. Sir Lew Grade sold those songs to Michael Jackson. He did give Paul McCartney a chance to buy them back, but Paul later said that Yoko thought the price was too high and refused to go in with Paul on the deal and Paul felt that he owed it to John to go in with Yoko to buy the songs. While Paul was trying to talk Yoko into a deal, Michael Jackson offered Sir Lew significantly more money for the songs. I don't remember the exact figures, but I think Yoko was quibbling at $100 million or so and Michael offered maybe $500 million. Sir Lew didn't wait and he took Michael's offer. Your supposed quote by Paul that he sold the songs to Michael, which you admit is by your memory, is completely untrue. Paul can't have said that he sold the songs to Michael Jackson because he didn't own them and you can't legally sell what you don't own, right? Paul has commented many times on the sale and he might have said that he "allowed" Michael Jackson to buy them, which isn't really true, but he certainly never sold them to Michael.
Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull wrote an op-ed in the Financial Times in favor of an extension.
Best responce was a letter that the FT published that basically said:
Hey Ian, You want to make more money? THEN WRITE SOME NEW SONGS!
Honestly, these songwriters, even the great ones, are thick as a brick sometimes.
FreeSpeech.org
These 4500 "artists" know that this 95 years will not create new incentive for them to create or enhance artistic works. (incentive when they are dead?). They know that this only serves to create money-for-nothing for their great-great-grandchildren: Or to create money-for-nothing for the owning corporation. They, themselves are probably also assuming to be rewarded soon for the corporate loyalty.
One casualty here is artistic creation. Innovation incentive for the heirs is limited due to inherited wealth.
But in reality, no heirs inherit these "rights". They sold out to some corporation or other individual unrelated to the original work.
The biggest casualty is artistic innovation from adaptation/derivation. Much of innovation builds on the works of others. Such an after-death copyright fights against such innovation.
One idea I've had is to have maybe 20 years of "free" copyright, after that, the work would have an (owner-stated) value, and be taxed annually at some percentage of that value, and any person or group of persons could, by paying the stated value, "buy" the work into the public domain. There'd be an outside limit on the length of copyright, too, but it wouldn't have to be too short (though shorter than the current US system, IMO), perhaps the greater of 75 years from creation or creator's life+20 years for personal works, and a flat 75 years for corporate works.
For those unfamiliar with U2, they're the ones who made quite a tidy profit during the "Zoo TV" era, when they based their design ethic upon rapid-fire clips of other people's copyrighted material, courtesy of video cutups by the "Emergency Broadcast Network."
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
If copyright is not extended it will have a huge negative effect on the record companies / British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and RIAA groups and content distributors, beyond that of royalties paid.
Content in the public domain waters down the argument for requiring ALL content is to be 'protected'. If half of the worlds music was public domain, lobbyists would have a hard time persuading lawmakers to put restrictions on ALL devices. This has been evident with the RIAA continuously argue why DRM is required for ALL music to prevent copyright infringement. These arguments usually fail to recognize the existence of non-copyrighted music (Creative Commons etc), and certainly make no provision for it in their argument or 'industry drafted bills' (e.g DMCA). This results in systems like the Zune wi-fi sharing system which applies DRM when transferring songs, whether the media requires protection or not, and with total disregard for other licences such as 'copyleft' which may expressly forbid it.
We've seen from the Napster and Gokster cases in the 'war on file sharing' argued that "ALL file sharing is infringement of copyright", and fails to recognize the legal uses of file sharing systems. Again, if half of the worlds music was public domain, media conglomerates' argument is significantly watered down. Services like Youtube and Google Video have already been targeted, and we've seen media companies desire to shutdown the service altogether although Youtube and Google video are exceptional in that they've been careful to prevent copyright infringement from the start, and the result has been for the media companies attempts to re-define infringement. (i.e teenagers lip-sinking songs). Again their aim is to prove the majority of content that is free is infringing copyright and the services providing it should be shut-down.
Big Media have a very huge stake in extending the duration of copyright, well beyond the immediate issue of royalties for artists. (The amount of these royalties that is passed to artists is another issue altogether). The music industry and BPI will likely "pull out all the stops" to prevent an extension of copyright, which we are starting to see it with the use of artists that have done very very well out of record company who may 'win the hearts and minds of the people'. Big Media will be lobbying politicians as fast as they can, and will no doubt us scare tactics where possible. If all this British music is released into public domain, it will make shutting down file sharing networks much harder.
The BPI (and RIAA) have responsibilities "in the collection, administration and distribution of music licenses and royalties" which relies on a vast library of content being under their control. Music that us currently in their control placed in the public domain erodes their breadth of responsibility and will ultimately affect their cut of the royalties.
The extension of copyright by 50 years has far further implications than just the royalties paid to the artists. It weakens many of the arguments of the BPI and RIAA groups, and reducing their value and their income. This argument is not about the artists getting more money, it is about the BPI and RIAA retaining their value and ability to "fight the crime of music theft".
They cannot fight the "crime" if the music is free to copy and share.
Now the content industries seem trying to push us back to those bad old days once more. It was a bad idea then. It's still a bad idea now. And the worst idea of all is making them retroactive. Those works were already created. They don't need this extension to encourage that creative effort. Even if the laws were changed, they should only apply to new works.
As for Sir Paul, he should just shut the F* up! He's made his pile and can't claim poverty in my eyes. In fact, I rather like him less today than yesterday due to his participation in all this.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."