UK Rejects Extending Music Copyright

timrichardson writes "The British Government has rejected extending copyright for sound recordings. This is an important development in the face of trends to extend copyright duration, although it leaves British copyright protection for music recordings at a shorter duration than for written works. The decision came despite fierce lobbying from the large British music industry. The music industry will now lobby directly to the European Commission, but without the support of the national government, its position is significantly weakened. British copyright for music recordings therefore remains at 50 years after the date of release of a recording, in contrast to 95 years in the US and 70 years in Australia."

Comments

Re:*heh*

[IndieKid]

I dunno, if the remaining Beatles survive another 6 years then their early work will be out of copyright in their lifetime.

Cliff Richard will start losing royalties two years before that.

List of countries' copyright length

[dvice_null]

List of countries' copyright length
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries'_co pyright_length

AFAIK the EU has ruled that length should be 70 years, so this should make UK almost unique in the Europe. But there are several other countries that use 50 years. Personally I think the copyright should hold only certain amount of years, since publishing. The current law assumes that people die relatively young (under 200 years old), while some scientist bulieve that this will change in the near future and people could live thousands of years.

Re:List of countries' copyright length

[Ngwenya]

AFAIK the EU has ruled that length should be 70 years, so this should make UK almost unique in the Europe

I think you might be mistaking the authorial copyright (life + 70 years) versus the mechanical copyright (50 years from publication). In the case of music, the composer(s) are assigned the copyright, so that anyone covering the song must give royalties to the composer. The mechanical copyright extends only to the actual recording of a particular song. So, in a few years, the Beatles tracks will enter the public domain, but anyone wishing to re-record a Lennon-McCartney Beatles number will still need to render money to Paul McCartney (and I guess Yoko Ono).

The complaints from the record labels was that the mechanical copyright needs to be extended to 95 years. I think they're content to leave the authorial copyright where it is.

I don't think the UK is out of wack with the rest of the EU. We harmonised copyright terms in 1995 (which was a sodding disaster, since films moved from 50 years from first showing, to life of director/screenwriter/music composer + 70. Thus making film copyright essentially forever).

--Ng

Not all dead

[Anonymous Coward]

The copyright expiry should be calculated from the death of the artist, not the date of recording.
The number of artists who will have recording careers over 50 years will rapidly increase as the normal life expectancy increases.
In a few decades, people a 120+ years old will not be a rarity.

Even today there are some old-timers hanging around that released albums over 50 years ago. Like John Lee Hooker (not British, but anyway) who started his recording career in 1948, and even upstarts like the Rolling Stones and surviving Beatles members are rapidly approaching the age where you are happy just to have working bowel functions.

Re:Agreed.

[TechForensics]

Take a leaf from the Rule Against Perpetuities (a law limiting the length of time after your death you can control who gets to assume ownership of your property): The duration of a life in being (pick someone young, like your son or grandson) plus twenty-one years.

That's worked for real property conveyance for more than five hundred years.

Change of government

[Flying pig]

Well, we had a Prime Minister who was widely perceived as ensuring that your Mr. Bush kept his anus nice and clean. Now we have a new Prime Minister who wants to distance himself from his predecessor (owing to a few things like Iraq, corruption scandals, being in hock to corporates). Said new Prime Minister is also from a Scots Presbyterian background and probably is not too keen on the modern music industry. I guess these things trickle down a bit.

Re:Not only about money.

[1u3hr]

You are assuming that copyright is only about money. It is not. When Britney Spears wants to cover your 45 year old rock n' roll masterpiece, you want to have a say, don't you?

This story is about the copyright of recordings. The copyright on music and lyrics, what you're talking about, last for 70 years after the composer's death. However, I am not sure that you can refuse to allow someone to cover your song in any case, there are compulsory licensing rights in some situations and you get a statutory payment.

Re:*heh*

[timrichardson]

Ok, he would lose the copyright on the sound recording 50 years after publication, but the copyright to the lyrics and music are life + 70 years.

Re:*heh*

[MetalPhalanx]

And tell me, what do you know of the music industry? Or are you just another arm-chair critic? Do you think "Knowing someone" is all that it takes? Let me ask a question... If your boss gave you half a million dollars and said to hire a team for whatever important project, would you take someone you knew who wasn't in the higher end of the talent pool? That'd be asking to lose your job. It's the same thing here. "Knowing someone" is enough to possibly get the talent shark to pop your CD in ahead of the other 50 CDs he's been given in the last week. It won't get you anything else. Unfortunately, they only choose the bands that they think will make them the most money, not the most musically diverse or interesting.

Yeah, knowing someone who is in the business will help you, but probably less so than knowing someone who already works for a company that you want to work for. As far as putting up with shit, musicians put up with some rather slimy people. Not to provide too much of a generalization but bar and club owners tend to not be the most wholesome crowd. Imagine busting your ass, pulling in a crowd of about 100-150 people @ $10 a ticket each + whatever the bar makes in drinks, and then getting paid $300, which is then split 5 ways... $60 per head is not really a lot of money. Or you could drive your collective asses to another city, probably in a large vehicle which isn't too good with the mileage, only to get told the gig is canceled/postponed and someone forgot to tell you. It'd be like going to work one morning and getting told to go back home, that they didn't need you that week and you weren't getting paid.

And no-one ever said you don't get rejections and sarcasm and all those lovely things from other jobs... But musicians put up with more of it than many. I'm speaking as a musician local to my city, who is trying to branch out at the moment.