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

*heh*

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

First sentence of TFA should read:

LONDON (Reuters) - The British government rejected a plea to extend copyright laws for sound recordings to beyond 50 years on Tuesday, prompting the music industry to accuse it of not supporting dead musicians and artists.

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.

Re:*heh*

[kinabrew]

I sure wish that I could get to keep collecting money for 50 years for work that I'm doing today.

Re:*heh*

[IndieKid]

I sure wish that I could get to keep collecting money for 50 years for work that I'm doing today. Time to get the guitar out then ;-)

As a UK citizen, I'm glad the British government is able to stand up to the record companies and reject their calls for an extension. If anything, we should be looking at reducing the length of copyright for written works (books and stuff) to match that for music.

Re:*heh*

[pubjames]

Of course, if like 99.9% of people, you would rather have a safe and steady job with regular salary paid, and not put up with rejection, sarcasm, derision, and general apathy for those years, with no pension, no career structure, and absolutely no certainty of ever making more than minimum wage, then that's fine,

Hey, I have my own business and all those things apply to me too. But there are no special laws for me that say I should continue to profit from work I did decades ago.

Re:*heh*

[OrangeTide]

How is that different from me having to work for years before I can rise up through the ranks in my company, or leave and start my own company?

Also a better way to make money is to be a record company executive, instead of trying to be a musician. Trying to get rich AND famous is a dream for losers. There are much more reliable ways to make tons of money than being a star (movie, sports or pop).

A some musicians get bitten by the Jazz bug during their rise in skill, and never become rich and famous. Not much money in Jazz, but musicians seem very dedicated to it. whatever makes you happy really.

But I think the question is, just because it takes some talent to be a top novelist, rich pop star, etc. why do they get a century long monopoly on their creations? Why not extend the same benefits to professional athletes, investment bankers and brain surgeons. They all had to work hard to be where they are, and none of them can earn royalties into future generations.

This is especially interesting to consider when you realize that a professional athlete can't continue to play into old age. Their body wears out and they eventually retire. While musicians like Mick Jagger can play for many many years (he's a grandfather), but still able to play and make money. I would argue he could continue to have a vast fortune without life-time copyright protections.

Why do we need a huge infrastructure of litigation and copyright enforcement? what benefits does it give society? Don't get me wrong, I'm not some sort of socialist, far from it. I am strongly support that individuals should have many rights and privileges and individuals should be protected from broad community interference. But also I don't think immortal corporations and organizations should have as many rights as human individuals do. sometimes it seems like they have more, but maybe it's power that money can buy.

Re:*heh*

[MartinG]

If I don't buy a lottery ticket, I haven't lost anything. This is fine; I want no part in the system because I think it stinks.

With copyright, I am involved in the system whether I like it or not. My right to use and change data is restricted by government intervention in order to protect the profits of a small minority who rely on an otherwise broken business model.

It's all a pointless discussion anyway. Extrapolating from current trends, in 15 years time you'll be able to buy a disc for next to nothing containing all the music anyone would want for next to nothing. Kids will be trading them in the playground for a pack of crisps. It's just a shame it will probably take until then for the industry to adapt itself, because it will cause itself so much pain in the mean time. If only it would aggressively adapt now, things would be better for everyone.

Re:*heh*

[donaldm]

I think you forgot to add, that if you own a business the risks are very high and you may need to put a considerable amount of your time into your business. What many people fail to realize is that a business also employs people while an entertainer rarely does although they do keep the entertainment industry profitable which in a twist can keep their shareholders happy. In the entertainment industry the entertainer is an employee and rarely has to take monetary risks unlike other business although many don't see it that way.

I know that it is very hard to be an entertainer and you still have to make sacrifices to get to the top but rarely the same as small business make. If an entertainer fails and is not stupid they can still do other work for a living but if a business venture goes stale then the owner and/or shareholders can go bankrupt requiring a considerable amount of time to recover if ever.

Personally I think 50 years is far to long since it rare that an entertainer actually writes (this can be copyright) and produces his/her own routines, in most cases they do what they are told which is not much different from that of an employee of any business, except they can get huge amounts of money and can collect up to 50 years of royalties if they were smart enough to negotiate for this.

Re:*heh*

[JonathanR]

College degrees might not expire, but they do depreciate in value. Try getting a college degree, sit on it for 10 years without gaining experience, and see how useful it is for you.

After a period of time, employers are usually looking for recent experience and demonstrated capability. Sure, they do expect to see a degree for most professional positions, but the degree alone (if at all) is not a passport for big-buck jobs.

Re:*heh*

[poot_rootbeer]

The entertainment industry is open to anyone, male or female, black or white, and has no real barriers to entry.

P.S. no fatties and no ugly chicks.

Re:*heh*

[twistedsymphony]

I think the difference is that creative works like a book, a movie, a song, are intangible data, they're an idea not a physical object. A house or rental property is a physical object it can't be used by an infinite amount of people at once, it can't be duplicated en-masse, and the bounds and rules governing it's ownership and usage are very cut and dry by comparison.

I think the key here is not so much about copyright limits and royalties but how you define ownership. If you want to define ownership of an idea in the same way that you do an object then there should be no limits, ownership could be sold to whoever wants it, and if desired can be donated to public use much like an artifact or a historical building. These "objects" would simply have the happy side effect of being leased out to an infinite amount of people at the same time. like an apartment complex with an infinite amount of rooms.

If you want to view an idea as belonging only to the person who created the idea, as if the idea itself is PART OF THAT PERSON, then maybe copyrights should be non-transferable... maybe they should become public domain with the death of their originator and if a record label wants exclusive use they should be required to exclusively lease that idea while the originator is alive. So when some musician signs with a label, or some writer signs with a publisher they always retain the rights to their works but they might sign a life time exclusive lease with the record label. the label could then sub-let it to other labels or terminate their contract etc. I doubt we'd ever see a system like this get put to use.

Maybe a happy medium that would actually bode with todays model is to set a limit of 50 years or until death, whichever is longer.

Re:*heh*

[badfish99]

So "those musicians who took all those risks, and saw it pay off" worked long and hard in the industry, knowing all along that their copyright payments would end after 50 years. Why should we give them any more money now? They made their choice in full knowledge of what would happen, and should live with it.

Good.

[apodyopsis]

Well I should hope so, I would much prefer music companies to make music by selling new and interesting acts, and by constantly signing and recognizing new talent.

It would be a sad day indeed if their only business model was to persistently extend to copyright on the older body of work.

Perhaps this victory for common sense will enforce it.

From TFA: "Some of the greatest works of British music will soon be taken away from the artists who performed them and the companies that invested in them."

I see it differently, some of the greatest works of British music will be freed from the corporate shackles and given to the British people to enjoy freely.

From wiki: "Copyright law covers only the form or manner in which ideas or information have been manifested, the "form of material expression". It is not designed or intended to cover the actual idea, concepts, facts, styles, or techniques which may be embodied in or represented by the copyright work. For example, the copyright which subsists in relation to a Mickey Mouse cartoon prohibits unauthorized parties from distributing copies of the cartoon or creating derivative works which copy or mimic Disney's particular anthropomorphic mouse, but does not prohibit the creation of artistic works about anthropomorphic mice in general, so long as they are sufficiently different to not be deemed imitative of the original."

50 years?

[jadin]

If a song is good enough to still earn money after 50 years, the artist is probably richer than his wildest dreams. Read as: doesn't need the income.

Re:50 years?

[MosesJones]

the artist is probably richer than his wildest dreams

Keith Richards has some pretty wild dreams....

Excellent, govnt. got it right for once

[Multiplet_Higgs]

I remember hearing Rodger Waters talking about this. He likened it to the government taking away your house after 50 years, quietly ignoring the fact that he'd managed to sell said house 14 million times in the interim, and still possessed the house.

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

I'm all for extending copyright

[rolfwind]

I think it should be extended so much so, that eventually the descendents of the Grimm brothers can sue Disney into oblivion for infringing on their works.

Re:I'm all for extending copyright

[FiniteElementalist]

The only things scarier than zombies are litigious zombies.

50 years is still too long

[minuszero]

Good, it's not extended.
Bad, it was too long anyway. I read an article (here) that said the optimum length is ~14 years!

IMO, it should be life of the author and that's it. Oh, and it should also be non-transferable---stop (most) record companies forcing the songwriters to give up the rights to their own songs in their contracts...

Re:Not all dead

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

The copyright expiry should be calculated from the death of the artist, not the date of recording.

Oh yes, I couldn't agree with you more, ask any dead artist - the motivation to produce new works comes from the copyright powers they enjoy!

Remixing

[gingerTabs]

So I guess this means that fairly soon there'll be a huge right of people in the UK to remix old music to their hearts content and release it to the UK market only with no royalty implications, but when it is released internationally the original artist will still be able to claim royalties off of sales.

Sounds like quite a good deal actually

Re:I understand the point of the MI

[sa1lnr]

"People might find that the music back then was actually really "better" than the crap spewed by today's hype"

I can assure that there was crap around then too.

The Archies and Paper Lace are just two that immediately spring to mind, but there were a lot more. ;)

Re:Agreed.

[hab136]

Why not make it 25 years or the death of the artist, whichever comes later?

I don't think it's that simple. Suppose a young musician is moderately popular, and is out on tour. Suppose (s)he dies in an accident, and their death sparks a tidal wave of interest in the musician. Now what if they had a very young child and widow? Are you suggesting the child and widow should be on welfare or be a working single-parent, when their spouse had more than enough money to support them if only they weren't screwed over by a copyright expiring at the artist's death? I'm pretty sure the dead musician would've wanted his family taken care of.

In your example, the 25 years would be the "later" event, and so the copyright would continue through death. (Unless the artist has made the work 25 years ago, then died, *then* it became popular)

I really don't understand why the copyright couldn't be 25 or 50 years and leave it at that. It doesn't seem unreasonable.

It was, originally. However, corporations making money off old creations lobbied to have it extended. For example, Disney is still pimping out a 1920s creation - Mickey Mouse.

No campaign donations? No bribes?

[Random BedHead Ed]

Sorry, I'm originally from the United States and am therefore confused by this article. It looks a bit like the government in the UK has opted for a well-reasoned, balanced public policy rather than simply doing what a couple large industry cartels were asking them to. How exactly did this happen? Were any campaign donations (or, failing that, bribes) made to members of Parliament by the recording and film industries? I'm trying to figure out what went wrong but TFA doesn't give any details.

Ukians? Thinking of voting Conservative?

[maroberts]

...don't until you've got an announcement of a reversal of policy on copyright. I got this reply after expressing my concerns about a speech David Cameron gave to the BPI.

Dear Mr Roberts,

I am writing on behalf of David Cameron to thank you for your e-mail
following David's recent speech to the British Phonographic Industry
AGM.

There is little doubt that copyright theft is a major threat to the
future of our creative industries. Last year alone an estimated 20
billion music files were downloaded illegally. We must also not forget
the strong evidence showing that much of the profit from illegal
downloads and piracy goes to fund drugs and organised crime. Taking
proper measures to protect our musicians and artists from such theft
will allow more money to end up with musicians and artists, and will
allow the music industry to reinvest in developing and nurturing new
talent.

That is why David supports the extension of copyright term from the
current 50 years to 70 years. This would reduce the disparity between
the length of copyright term given to composers and that granted to
producers and performers, and will protect the thousands of musicians
who will lose the rights to their recordings over the next ten years.
Some people think these are all multi-millionaire rock stars, but the
reality is that many are low-earning session musicians who will be
losing a vital pension.

Finally, we believe that extending copyright term will not only allow
record companies to further reinvest in developing the next generation
of musical talent, it will also encourage the industry to digitise both
older and niche repertoire which will be good for all music fans.

Thank you, once again, for getting in touch.
Yours sincerely,

Honor Fishburn
Office of David Cameron MP
House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA

My original message was:

David Cameron is not winning friends and influencing people by the
speech to the BPI. The recording industry is small, and overly vocal,
while there are a vast number of people who expect that copyright should
protect the immediate future of artists, but should not drag on to the
obscene level of 50 or 70 years after the death of the artist or
publication. Many people wonder what is so special about music when
designs and patents only extend for 20 years or so. Like patents,
copyright should be a deal; protection for a limited term in exchange
for placing ideas into the public pool.

Copyright and Patents are designed to encourage people to place their
ideas into the open so that other people may use them immediately at a
cost, and so that the ideas therein may become part of the Public body
of knowledge, available to all for the good of all.

Far from campaigning for an increase in the length of copyright, its
duration should be reduced to that similar to patents.

This argument has been dragging on for ages. He should really read a
speech by Thomas McCauley on Copyright from 1841, the opinions therein
are still just as valid today.

The byline on this form states
"Conservatives are tackling the issues that matter to the mainstream
majority."; in making this speech Mr Cameron is pandering to an
overprivileged minority. Their ideas and products deserve protection for
a limited term, not fossilisation for ever.

ah Cliff...

[joe 155]

Cliff Richards, the man who made a hit song out of singing the lords prayer to the tune of Auld lang syne... Granted I think that the money went to charity, but he couldn't claim he didn't make money out of it indirectly, as well as it raising his profile again and allowing him to win awards. Do they not know what seemingly (or actually) eternal copyright would mean...

Jesus: ...So, I see you own a copy of the Bible
Cliff: Yes my Lord, I read it all the time. It's the best book in the world.
Jesus: Ah, but the thing is... Me and my dad wrote that... and you never paid us... I heard the other day that that's theft. Hell, if it was just me, I might let it slide, but it was in the commandments and all. Can't have one rule for you and another for those who stole a physical copy of books from shops... time to burn.

50 years....50 secs more like!

[Fuzzypig]

Christ on a bike! 50 years, and that is the shortest amount! Most of the drivel pumped out today has a shelf life of about 50 secs before it's recycled on the latest bi-monthly compilation CD, then left to rot in some record company basement alongside the careers of the so called musicians who "wrote" it!