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EU Commissioner Proposes 95 year Copyright
Albanach writes "The European Union Commissioner for the Internal Market has today proposed extending the copyright term for musical recordings to 95 years. He also wishes to investigate options for new levies on blank discs, data storage and music and video players to compensate artists and copyright holders for 'legal copying when listeners burn an extra version of an album to play one at home and one in the car ... People are living longer and 50 years of copyright protection no longer give lifetime income to artists who recorded hits in their late teens or early twenties, he said.'"
That clinches it, I'm moving back to Europe.
Obviously, Crack is cheaper and more plentiful over there.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Why should anyone get a lifetime income for one thing they created? If they do, why would they bother creating anything else?
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
So get a job, honestly, nobody inherently deserves to be able to survive decades from doing something once early in life unless it was truly highly valuable to society (in which case it should pay for itself, and shouldn't require forced theft of taxpayers to give somebody money for sitting on their butt). Go flip burgers or make new recordings or something, leeching from others is disgusting.
Why bother? It's not like anything created by the current artists in their teens will still be listened to five years from now, let alone fifty...
I think that the government & various communications companies that I've done work for over the years should pay me for my designs & plans for 95 years after their creation. Why yes, they are works of art!
There is a war going on for your mind.
Man they open up that EuroDisney and now they're extending copyright over there as well... Watch out for Disney China.
We figured out a long time ago that it's easier to elect seven judges than to elect 132 legislators.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Fair use, anyone? I bought the music, and if it was a digital copy, why should they have any say on me paying more so I can listen to it in my car since I don't have the means to use my iPod in my car? Oh, that's right, they want to control where, when, and and what I listen to their crap on. Let go of the dying business model. Give your consumers their proper power. I would bet things like this only encourage more people to just say "screw you" and download illegally.
Why would artists need compensating for when people make *legal* copies?
1) What incentive does a "lifetime of income" give to songwriters to write new songs? Will amateurs be the only ones writing songs until their next big hit single?
2) What's the difference between burning a second copy of a CD FOR MYSELF and carrying that original CD between my house and my car with me? Because one used my hand and one used a computer?
Quite honestly, if (like me) you are a European, I guess it's time to kick some butt and make Europe more democratic.
Whoever that Commissioner is, I propose we all sack him. With extreme prejudice, if you see what I mean...
OK, this being said, anyone ready to open a petition against this stooopid copyright extension?
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
If it takes 6 months to record an album why should they still get paid for the work in 90 years? Copyright time should be reduced, not increased After this time it would become freely distributable. If the time was reduced to 7-10 years this would surely promote creativity.
However the artist should keep control if music was going to be used for other purpose other than listening (movie soundtrack or advert ) and be allowed to permit or deny such use.
This would be a fairer system all round.
Ruddy hell there are some people who really do give the Irish a bad name....
Charlie McCreevy is an ex-Irish MP and a chartered accountant whose biggest role was as Minister for Finance in Ireland.
Currently has no registered special interests of note, but damn he has come up with a stupid proposal. Even something sensible like "until death" would have met the requirements for people living longer whereas 95 years is just about the corporations behind the people.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Talk about encouraging laziness! Why should an 'artist' garner a lifetime income from a single thing? I install an OS on a server, should I be expected to get royalties for as long as that server is in operation? No, of course not, that's insane. Yet this is how recording companies, legislatures and even maybe some real artists see the world. Make once, get paid many. I guess that's par for the course in a world that makes life entirely too easy.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
Why would they bother in the first place? If you can't earn a living from your work, why would you stay in that line of work?
Best Slashdot Co
if an artist is incapable of creating nothing more than a hit, is (s)he really an artist? should (s)he be able to live off of it? and why should this be limited to musical recordings only? why not ebooks or other digitally-storable artistical forms?
Not like anyone honors the copyright anyways.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
The more ridiculous the so called "intellectual property" laws become, the faster the remaining traces of respect the average person has for them will erode. While there's a valid argument for a short copyright term being beneficial to society, 95 years will only encourage people to ignore the law altogether.
I'm copyrighting(c) the use of the word copyright(c). Everyone who uses the word copyright(c) must put a little copyright(c) (c) after it, and give me $.05 for each instance.
I'm also copyrighting(c) the word copyleft(c), so you Gnu folks won't get away with it either.
And the copyright(c) (c) notation? Yep, copyrighting(c) that too.
This post copyright(c) me, 2008.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
but I think the owner, must re-register the work ever once in a while, otherwise it can revert to the public domain. its a win for Disney who dont want to lose the mouse and it would be a win for the consumer who want an out of print song\book\movie that only they care about
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
What if that chick on the new Terminator series came out with a song? I mean, she probably lives forever and stuff. By this logic, copyright should be infinite. Terminator babes deserve equality.
How to Download YouTube Videos
There goes the neighborhood. What say we spam McGreevy with groovy alternate ideas and lots of reasons why his idea is, shall we say, decrepit and ignorant? Politely, of course. We're decent people.
What the Big Four SHOULD do is use a business model where people deposit money on an escrow account or something, and once the account reaches a certain amount, put the album/movie they're paying for online, in high quality, for free. For example, let's say they want $10,000,000 for a new Pearl Jam album. People who want a byte of that fork over a few bucks, plus a few bucks extra if they want a CD with a pretty inlay and a PJ mug and T-shirt. Moichandizing, moichandizing! I like having band gimmicks and pens, gimmeh!
Seriously though, I think it would work. Copyright just doesn't, in its current form; it's swimming against the stream. Plagiarism is built into nature. Molecules are identical, so are their composite particles (i.e. they're clones); DNA does self-replication; creatures learn through imitation, else why would there be schools? That's the base line why copyright is just not so right. The only edge you have is to keep an idea, song, movie or program (update?) for yourself and release it under certain terms. Once it's in the wild, good luck trying to control it. (Right, RIAA?). I'd set up a company to do it myself, but I'm already running four and I'm a bit tired, so I'll let one of you scoop it up and get rich. I'll happily help pay for the next Mighty Mighty Bosstones album.
- Jynx
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it well worth the effort.
This is godsend for artists like Britney Spears who still have incredibly popular songs like her "Baby One More Time" and "Oops, I did it again"
Think about how often you hear those songs on the radio! In 2093, Britney will need the income from this song to survive! Honestly, she's entitled.
Meanwhile if you invent a really cool technology that saves millions you only get payment for, what, 20 years?
Seems a little disproportionate/unfair - I mean like a good tune as much as the next person, but I don't see it having the same impact as many new inventions can. Sounds harsh if the inventor of a third world solar powered incubator, or a new catheter, or a water purification kit gets money for only 20 years whilst the writer of the crazy frog can get money for 95. What is the world coming to?
Screw it! Someone copyright the damn dictionary and all words within and stop people from writing books and songs entirely. Yes. I know that's a moronic suggestion but, at the rate things are going, it'll sound more and more logical compared to the inane crap that politicians and lobby groups are suggesting... And I work in a creative industry where protecting the rights to my work is important to me, but this is so far beyond laughable now....
Workers are demanding to be compensated for their work for 95 years after leaving a business because everything they do is obviously copyrighted to them.
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
This is to protect the recording industry.
God spoke to me.
a lifetime income? Can't they make enough profit off of it the first 50 or so ridiculously long years? Works often make the most money in the beginning of their life, not so many years later when it is no longer in synce with the zeitgeist that imbues so many creative products and fads.
I can't get a lifetime income based on most work I did so many years ago. Neither do others.
The purpose of copyright was to give an incentive to produce and publish material -- and have society benefit both by initially recieving it and then getting it in public domain. Enforcement costs money (police, courts, etcetera), so this time-limited monopoly was a fair arrangement.
But by no means was it to guarantee an income for life. That seems a little too much for just any random creative work when others have to make a day to day living. Not that I believe "it's for the poor starving artists!" line anyway.
And, why should they be 'compensated' for it at all? I bought the CD. By my understanding of fair use, I'm fscking allowed to do that.
Just because they want to convince people that they should get paid for media/place shifting, doesn't actually make it true. It's just what they're trying to convince people.
OK, fine, downloading it without paying for it is copyright infringement. Pursue that. I don't care. But things like mix tapes have already been ruled as a perfectly legitimate use of your own copies of songs.
Soon they'll want to get paid every time I hear the &^$^^& song. They really do risk alienating the people whoa actually buy this stuff.
Just my 2 cents.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
This is in "dog years" right?
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
I hereby copyright Trolling. Nobody is allowed to troll without my permission. License fees start at 100 BILLION dollars.
Sorry punk. You can only copyright your own troll posts. Provided the act of trolling weren't patented, which it is, by me.
My lawyers will be in touch.
Sincerely,
Mr. Underbridge
Resident Troll
Even if this is legislated does anyone truly believe it will have any impact?
The internet is creating a de-facto public domain. lol
that would solve copying problem for good. Honestly, I don't even want to listen to any commercial crap any more at all. They can have their music.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
Would this apply in the UK?
Aren't some of the Beatles' earliest recordings going to be entering the public domain very soon unless the copyright terms are extended?
If it doesn't make a lifetime worth of income in the first year, it's very unlikely any publisher will bother with a work after a few years. If it hasn't made a tidy sum to invest in 50 years then it's been out of print for most of them.
How many works are there that are over 14 years old, still generating royalties, and have not made enough money for the creator that they can comfortably retire for the next 95 years?
A more reasonable copyright time is when you die, so does the copyright to that work.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
If you don't like these crazy Copyright terms, the answer is simple: Avoid works under full Copyright, and encourage others to do the same.
Now, if you can get a fair use copy without paying for it (i.e.: DVR your favorite TV show, record your favorite song off the radio, etc.), go ahead and do it. But, DO NOT, under any circumstances, spend money on works under terms you don't like. Take all the money you would have spend on those works, and contribute that to artists, writers, etc. you like who publish under a Creative Commons license.
Artists (of all kinds) will follow the money.
If you follow this practice, and convince two others to do the same, who in turn convince two others, we'll get a pyramid scheme going that will end with the death of infinite copyright terms, and more creative works for us all to share and remix.
If the point of this extended copyright is so that artists will maintain the copyright for the rest of their lives, why did they go and mention a specific amount of time? Wouldn't it make more sense to just say "until they die", rather than trying to estimate the average lifespan of a modern artist? What if (s)he dies young?
Many different points.
1. The purpose of copyright is not to give someone a life-long income, the purpose is to give people incentives to create (in this case musical) works, which in turn helps society as a whole. I would like to see how 95 years instead of 50 years copyright will cause more music to be created.
2. If the purpose is to give a life-long income to composers and musicians, then surely record companies and other companies should be excluded. So lets say: 95 years of copyright for the composer and musicians; copyright can be sold or licensed for at most ten years at a time and then automatically falls back to the composer (and any contract saying otherwise is void; note that this about the right to make _copies_, consumers who bought for example a record would have the right to own it and not copy it forever). Works for hire fall into public domain after ten years.
3. If the purpose is to give a life-long income to composers and musicians, then we should say so. Make it for example for the life time of the composer + 10 year (to give a bit of income to heirs), or 50 years from the creation, whichever is longer.
4. We are talking now about real long times. Over that length of time, things tend to get lost. Works get orphaned (because the copyright owner has no idea what is his property, for example), and permission to copy can be impossible to get because the owner cannot be found. I'd like some rules to take that into account.
This is about politicians investing in patent trolls and extortionist companies to finance their rule over you and I.
Don't you people see that? If these people are forced to work they wont have time to plan their rule over us.
i go to the pirate bay
People are living longer and 50 years of copyright protection no longer give lifetime income to artists who recorded hits in their late teens or early twenties, he said.
What, copyright's purpose is a retirement plan for one-hit wonders now?
I'd invoke the world's smallest violin, but the recording is still under copyright.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
if they want to "protect" for a certain period of time, i think they should limit this protection to a certain amount.
eg until the album earns $XXX,XXX
He wants to put levies on me burning my own source code, photos, and personal documents to blank optical media in order to help the music industry?
is going to need all the extra cash after Heather Mills has taken him to the cleaners!
Maybe EU residents should E-Mail the commissioner to tell him what they think.
His name is Charlie McCreevy; you can have a look at his bio/profile/portfolio etc here:
http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/mccreevy/index_en.htm
His E-Mail Address: Charlie.Mc-Creevy@cec.eu.int
Notice that this is *not* a call to spam him; that won't help anybody. Informed, thoughtful considerations about why a copyright extension is a good/bad idea might. Maybe he listens to what citizens are saying.
The only people getting rich off all these insane scams are the recording company executives with their multimillion dollar golden parachutes. The 5 cent royalty that crime-gangs like the RIAA allow the actual artists to have isn't providing significant income to anyone except a few big names.
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
Open Letter to the EU Commissioner;
Why exactly should society give "lifetime income to artists [and companies, of course] who recorded hits in their late teens or early twenties"?
What other human contributions and contributors to society are enjoying similar guaranteed lifetime income?
Please elaborate.
I want a cut from the future earnings of all my students. They couldn't have done it without me after all.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
The European Union Commissioner for the Internal Market has today proposed extending the copyright term for musical recordings to 9.5 years.
there...fixed it for you.....
oh? what? you were being serious? but, honestly, how can this be a good idea for the people? yes, I understand the industry is giving you a lot of money to make these crazy laws, but really, the people, who elected you into office, are also giving you a lot of money to look out for their best interests. are the bribes from industry lobbyists really a bigger source of income than taxes?
-I only code in BASIC.-
i would think a 5 or 10 year copyright would be enough, if you dont get rich off your product by then that means it is not a lucrative product, (and needs to be re licensed under the GNU/GPL forever) - :)
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
...against people living off early works is the Phil Spector Syndrome.
You wind up with things like this prowling around and causing deaths.
True.
And while most performing artists are already heavily subsidized by the states, extending copyright to recoup the cost and efforts makes little sense.
And while we are at it, people who make movies are treated like shit and get virtually no money. Musicians get everything and it's still not enough.
So, can I buy that rifle now.
Yes, the big one...
...but we need to do more. I used to flip burgers at McDonald's 30 years ago, but I'm still alive, and I haven't seen one thin dime from them since 1979. This is an outrage. We need to expand the rights to get compensated for work over a lifetime to *everyone*. Fairness will only be achieved when the financial well being of my grandchildren is ensured through 2073 by their receipt of residuals for my work at McDonald's.
"lifetime income to artists who recorded hits in their late teens or early twenties, he said."????
When does everyone else get to have lifetime income too? And this only includes productions that were recorded way back when. There is nothing stopping said artist from re-recording a newer version of that hit song (best of...) that will have the same copyright protections.
Why do artists and government officials think that Copyright means 'money for forever?'
No! It's a *SIG*. Keep the Special Interest Groups away! (Con joke!)
The commissioner is either ignorant or lying. I don't know which one is worse.
He should mean that the artists' children can enjoy the royalties for mere 50 years after their parent has died. Cry me a river.
Contact details for the commissioner's office are available here: http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/mccreevy/press_en.htm.
I'll be letting them know my feelings as an EU Citizen. If you decide to do so please make your opinions felt in an intelligent and reasonable manner.
Hey! Artists! Invest some of your income... Don't spend it all. Invest some of what you earn now in a retirement plan.
Honestly, if laws can get changed to make copyright terms longer... newsflash... They can get changed to make them shorter too.
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
Murder is illegal, so you'd have to figure that there's no chance of getting caught for it.
/. piece about a new use for an old drug (cancer cure?) that was not going to be developed because there was no patent protection for anything it would be used for. Copyright is "IP" protection just like Patent is. So if there's no money without patent protection, there'll be no money without copyright protection.
Quite difficult when you then assert you own the copyright of the dead artist...
Please remember, if copyright ends, your ability to extract more money than the marginal cost of production ends too, so there's VERY LITTLE MONEY in uncopyrighted works.
See that old
And it would behoove the company that bought the artists' work to commercialise to keep them alive, since if the artist dies too soon, they won't be able to get their money back from copyright leveraged prices.
You're in violation of my patent: "Means an apparatus for the use of an electronic forum to copyright the word copyright", please pay up.
http://www.mhall119.com
Wouldn't a 95 year copyright be significantly shorter than todays copyright of the life of the writer/artist + 70 years (in some cases +50 and +80)?
Or does he propose 95 years post death of the writer/artist? Not many people live for 95 years after their death, so I don't see why they need the income.
After you give me my royalties for the patent, "a means for harassing people with frivolous patents" and my further patent, "a meta-patent for the patenting of insane and ridiculous ideas that should never get through the patent office, ooga booga wooga"
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
Does anyone here actually think this has to do with individual musicians & songwriters? It's about record labels & publishing maintaining the rights on the music and songs to be able to exploit them commercially for 95 years. Call it the "BEATLES" clause. I love the hate on for musicians. There is a top tier of Madonnas and McCartneys, but most musicians are living pretty meagerly.
I don't know what the basis of copyright law is in the EU, but the US Constitution grants exclusive rights to authors and inventors 'for limited times'. I don't think it would be out of line to believe that our founding fathers meant limited with respect to the lifetimes of the authors/inventors.
Have gnu, will travel.
This guy doesnt give a shit about musicians or artists or whatever, none of the legislators proposing copyright extensions and tougher enforcement are. Who really benefits from a 95 year long copyright? Not the schmoe that made the song, the RECORD LABEL does. Corporations are people too you know, except they have much longer lifespans and much deeper pockets to bribe politicians with. Shit all you have to do is look at the RIAA's proposal to cut artist's compensations from online sales even more than they already are (which is only like 10% at most). They obviously could care less about getting artists their just due (btw I'm not suggesting a 90 year copyright is just due either), they care about filling the deep pockets of one of the biggest middle men the world has ever seen.
Short copyright terms discourage independent music and art.
Sound backwards?
There are many artists who labor in obscurity for years before gaining recognition. Small musicians that slowly build up careers over time will be hurt by short copyrights. Major labels that can afford to aggressively promote their wares will not be as hurt because they will make most of their money in the first few months anyway.
It will not be to the public's benefit to have every author, musician and artist immediately selling their rights to their work to corporations instead of holding on to them.
A blanket reduction of copyright terms is a blunt instrument.The problems of copyright can be more effectively be resolved by reducing the copyright terms of works that are out-of-print and are no longer actively being sold. 90 percent of copyrighted works are out-of-print and collecting dust. If the copyright holders can't be bothered to release them, these works should revert to public domain. This would resolve the orphaned culture problem without discouraging independent art and music.
Lately, I see a lot of TV shows saying the world may not last a hundred years. And then I see copyright durations proposed to be set at about the same length of time. So, putting it all together, they mean to have copyright "for all eternity", right?
I propose linking copyright and global warming, so the people with the economic interests to hold their intellectual property for all time are motivated to invest in at least fixing global warming in order to get that privilege. That way, we at least get something out of it--Disney and friends can cure global warming and we'll reward them by extending their copyrights.
If they fail, though, a portion of the projected End Times should have an allocated moratorium on copyright to allow for a mad free-for-all trying to save the world using any available resources ... without fear of being sued for so doing.
Otherwise, the world is going down the suer for sure. (Yeah, that typo was intentional. I guess someone will try to sew me now, so I better zip it.)
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
So what's the problem? Why should a single work provide anyone lifetime income? If they're prolific enough in their teens and twenties they should be able to save and invest their income over those 50 years and still be well off for life.
What innovation would shorter copyrights on music create? I don't disagree with your point in general, I just don't see that it applies to music.
I know that you were probably just using messageboard histrionics, but being bad with money doesn't make you an idiot, it just means you are bad with money. I write this as an admitted idiot, but I don't think that it is because I am bad with my money.
However, if you suddenly come into a shit ton of money and don't hire a financial advisor then you probably do deserve what you get.
Amusing aside...I can remember driving thru the armpits of America in a shitty van dreaming about if we could just get popular enough to make enough money to own a house (1) that everyone could live in and made enough that we didn't have to have real jobs that we would consider that "making it".
This privilege was created to assure the creators of various inventions would have a short time in which to profit exclusively from their work before it was shared for the common good of all. This type of profit only thinking is was hampers progress for what would now become centuries. One ironic thing about this is that if more things fell out of copyright inventors would invent new things and combine old inventions for even more profit. Progress seems to be something the profit only thinkers have forgotten was part of the purpose of copyright. There has to be balance, right now it is insanely pushed toward the greedy verse the greater good of society. It is from these things socialist movements are born.
I think that copyrights ought to operate under a use it or lose it system, where if the item (game, music, movie, literature or software) is not being actively promoted or sold, that the copyrights lapse into the public domain after 25 years.
When you consider Mickey Mouse or James Bond, the original creator is long dead (or cryonically frozen if you believe the tabloids), but it is an ongoing enterprise, and the current owners of the IP still use it. The same can be said of Batman, Superman, and others.
But if enough time passes where no new works are created for a given property, it ought to become public domain. I also think that the copyrights on old IP should be something that can be challenged, so that owners of old content don not just put out marginal re-hashes to sustain the rights on the original and still profitable IP.
END COMMUNICATION
But, it needs one small tweak: you get your 95 year copyright, but you only get it ONCE. .max
Back when the USA was first being founded, copyrights were eternal in Europe. America thought this was a Bad Idea, and put the words "secure for a limited term" into its founding document to stop this abuse. Europe eventually agreed, and eternal copyrights ended.
But now, with a pansy Supreme Court that decides that whatever a bought-off Congress calls a "limited term" they're just fine with, we're headed straight back to the eternal copyright, because nobody remembers any longer just why that was such a bad idea in the first place.
And then its a game of ping-pong, with the very same copyright lobby ratcheting the length of time up one place, than then screaming their heads off that everywhere else isn't "up to date" with "artist protections." Wash - Rinse - Repeat. And we're all being screwed over by it.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Most of the people here who support copyright as is, only ask for the time to be reduced. Guess what the people in charge think of that idea guys
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Both of those are invalidated by prior art.
http://www.mhall119.com
Too bad it won't persuade them to throw out the paid-off bums who passed it in the first place, and elect some more common sense replacements.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I'd be curious if he can name a job which compensates for a lifetime the work done over a few teenage years? Is he not presuming with this that Europe has to re-establish a nobility class? This time around, derived from the "artists" that have influenced culture? This seems like a deliberate step away from egalitarianism. Is that what Europe really intends to do? Why is no one asking this question in public?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I can easily give content creater's (be they music, art, lit, or new inventions) rights and compensation for their lifetime. Its when big companies come in and buy those rights that the current copyright or patten laws get screwed over from what there were originally meant to be, a way to reward and compensate creaters for their works. With corporations now in the mix they want and need to hold those "rights" for as long as they can get get the maximum profits from the copyrights or pattens. Its corporations that re the ones pushing for extended lengths of "rights" with a term listed in years and not a simple "lifetime"
To those who keep spouting the "let them get a real job" I have to say I dont WANT my favorite authors or musicians spending time earning a living instead of creating more works for me to enjoy. I am a huge fan of David Weber and John Ringo's books, I want their asses in a chair writing their next book not working a "real job" and so I willingly pay for their copyrighted books in an effort to make sure they can and are spending their time writing and not worrying about feeding their family.
As for millionaire musicians, thats much more from the pricing of concert tickets, and is very much market driven. If huge numbers of fan were not willing to pay between $30 and $100 each for a concert ticket then these they would not be making millions of dollars. If they can con million of fans out of the price of concert tickets then I say they earned that money. Just dont expect me to pay their ridicules prices.
Absolutely not. When you pick up a work, you should be able to read the copyright notice and determine whether it is or is not copyrighted. Current law does not allow this because you have to Wikipedia someone's death date. In the case of disputes, the actual death certificate would be needed.
This is not acceptable. And corporations never die. I can see the benefit of assigning a copyright for ex. to your employer, or the FSF, so we would need to account for that as well. We need a set length of time, regardless of whether they are alive or dead. The original term was a set number of years, calculated from actuarial tables, and they did that on purpose after debating the merits according to legend.
Too easy to kill someone to get a work out of copyright. Of course the benefit would be small, since the copyright would not revert to someone else, it would just be lost. But in a dispute, you have the benefit of not having to pay damages *and* being able to continue whatever it was that used to be infringing.
17 years, adjusted for current life spans, plus an optional registration / extension period. If it's a registered work, you can optionally extend it. If you don't care enough to extend it, it's public domain. This does not allow you to look at the copyright notice, but there are only two choices (extended or not) and an absolute answer in the copyright registry.
This is a Bad Idea because it's essentially useless. While this once might have made sense, in these days of digital publication and distribution, all you would need to do to hold on to it forever is leave it for sale on a server somewhere. It's available. You can pay for it. Even though nobody does, the cost of keeping it available for sale like this is nil, meaning once again nothing ever goes out of copyright.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I would like to suggest that I for any computer I have ever repaired, I be paid the sum of 3 cents every time it is used for the next 95 years.
It's really the only fair way to go about things.
They get lifetime plus 50 years! How stupid do we look? It's in the Berne convention, and that lying sack of shit Charlie McCreevy knows better.
The Berne Convention states that all works except photographic and cinematographic shall be copyrighted for at least 50 years after the author's death, but parties are free to provide longer terms, as the European Union did with the 1993 Directive on harmonising the term of copyright protection.Lifetime is bad enough. It's an indeterminate period of time instead of fixed, and the whole point of copyright is to encourage innovation! Lifetime doesn't encourage innovation. Imagine if patents worked that way and Edison decided to rest on he laurels after the phonograph. There would be no motion picture camera, no light bulb, and no electric grid.
Go straight to hell Charlie McCreevy! Just die and go straight to fucking hell.
Unlike us rich bastards that have to pay money into a pension fund all our working lives.
I don't know where you live, but in the US, our constitution lays out the purpose of copyright in Article I, Section 8:
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
This clause, along with clauses that prohibit the federal government from doing anything not laid out in the constitution, gives a very explicit purpose for copyright in the US. Copyright statutes that serve another purpose are illegal.
WRONG! As I just explained to the same idea above, you put it on a server where people can still purchase it for download. Maybe nobody does, but this costs you nothing, yet keeps your copyright intact forever because it's still available for sale. And it's promoted by the fact that you can find it through a search engine. This is not the solution.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Copyright has absolutely nothing to do with "An artist should be able to live off of their work for their entire life." Society should not support someone for something that they did more than seventy years in the past.
Society benefits the most when something is public domain. That way everyone can use, enjoy it, etc. However, Society tells artists "I understand that you have more reason to create if, for a limited time, you can benefit from what you create. To encourage you, we will offer you a limited period of control over your work - so that you may benefit. At the end of that, it becomes everyone's property. In this manner, we all will benefit."
That is the intent of copyright.
Andrew Borntreger
Champion of cinematic disasters
Note: I know that this has nothing to do with artists. I suppose it has to do with lobby money and corporation interests.
Best argument I heard against that has to do with Johnny Cash: Imagine a hemorrhoid commercial with the Ring of Fire song playing in the background a week after he died.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
More than anything else to stand up against is: NO EXTENSIONS OF EXISTING COPYRIGHT TERMS!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The rapper that wrote the classic "fuck that bitch ho'" should be able to enjoy income from it 60 years from now as it plays on the oldies stations and in the elevators.
So it would force copyright holders to make the works available again. This is an improvement over the current situation where some corporations have amassed a vault of copyrights to works that they are not making available.
Copyright. Copyright is designed to benefit those who truly create new works. If you real all early laws on copyright, you will find that it is *NOT* meant to be a system that guarantees income for the rest of the artist's life. It is meant to stimulate creativity by LIMITING the amount of time that the original artist gets full control, therefore cajoling the artist into creating new works. (The same general idea as patents.)
If you are going to change copyright law to be a 'guaranteed income for the life of the artist', fine. Then change it to just that. "Life of the artist". If the "artist" is a corporation, then give it a LOW span, based on 'averages'. Let's say that the average artist lives to be 80 years old. (Pretty close to the average lifespan nowadays in the "developed" world.) Let's also say that an 'average' artist creates works from age 20 to age 60. That would be forty years of work, and the average age of production is 40. The length from average age of production to death is also forty years. So let's place 'corporate' copyright term at forty years from time of creation. Period. Even better, for corporate-copyrighted material would be to have 10-year protection, with three 10-year renewals, so that if a company doesn't take active effort, it will expire in 10 years.
The other issue is putting a fee on recordable media. If you do that, then making unlimited noncommercial copies should instantly become legal. If I have paid a fee that is theoretically to compensate the artist for my making a copy, then I should therefore be allowed to make as many copies as I want, and do whatever I want with them, as long as I don't sell them. (Not to mention that in today's world, probably the vast majority of 'copying' is pure electronic, with no physical media.) Either way, I'd like to know if, in countries that already have these systems (Canada, for example,) do the actual ARTISTS see a single dime of this fee? If I buy five hundred packs of 500 CD-Rs in Ottawa, does Celine Dion or Sarah McLachlan see a single cent from that sale? How about the unknown artists that have major-label contracts? Do they see even one cent? (Note: "One Cent" is a trademark of the Royal Canadian Mint, all rights reserved.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
What would happen to free (libre) software when its copyright expires? Does it go public domain? Can the GPL be discarded and the code be used in closed, proprietary software? I guess, but I would like to have your thoughts about this.
Remember the year 2000? They promised us flying cars. They delivered the PT Cruiser...
This isn't just about getting paid. It's also about creative control of intellectual property. For instance, let's say you are a rock musician and you want to maintain your street credibility as an anarchistic free-spirit. Without time protection on copyright, what is to stop McDonald's from stealing your song the moment you die from a drug overdose, or -- in some proposed scenarios -- the moment it is recorded?
How will that hamper sales of your next album?
Musicians aren't worried that fans are stealing their songs. Musicians are worried that other musicians and advertising companies are stealing their songs.
The fact of the matter is that artists...unlike day-job-having-folks...live and die by their reputation, which includes the context of how their work is used. In fact, allegations of greed aside, the best writers generally never get paid for what they do until after they are dead. It is better than never getting paid at all. It is some consolation to sit down every day in front of a novel and think: well, maybe when I die from quinsy or the collywobbles due to my absolute lack of a safety net or health insurance, this piece of work will be able to put my kid through college or let my sad wife finance a nice young lover.
Remember: for every musician who makes enough money that they can legitimately be censured for "not saving for retirement" there are a THOUSAND freelance songwriters and set musicians who work in their spare time while holding down bullshit service sector jobs and who are brutalized by fans, the music industry, lawyers, the electric company, God, the devil, and Walt Disney. Nothing can be done to help them, but for God's sake, let's not brutalize them further.
A more reasonable limitation would be that the copyright should be held as long as an artist is alive, or five years (whichever is the longer). If the artist dies within five years the copyright shall fall on next of kin.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
"People are living longer and 50 years of copyright protection no longer give lifetime income to artists who recorded hits in their late teens or early twenties"
Why should artists receive lifetime compensation for whatever they created as teenagers? I'm not getting paid for the work I did 5 years ago even though it is still being used by a growing number of people.
Artists should be compensated for the work they are currently doing, not for the work they did in decades past.
that's how I see it anyway . . .
McCreevy was in fact, sent off to Europe for the express purpose of exiling him from Irish Politics. Even in his own Free Market centric party, his policies were far too Thatcherite to let him continue to make his characteristically brash polemics. He gleefully accepted his "promotion" to European statesman, and his party, and indeed the country, breathed a collective sigh of relief.
McCreevy has a history of giving tax breaks and other concessions to industries and business that he "approves of". Witness his institution of a 0% tax on bets made at horse race meetings (he's a big fan of the sport). He's a supply sider with little time for anything that doesn't immediately net money i.e., fair use, hospitals, etc. He's been mentioned before on Slashdot here and here. The "loose cannon" quote is particularly apt.
Charlie McCreevy is the type of politician lobbyists love. He'll wine and dine, brunch and lunch with all manner of industry representatives and indeed has by the looks of things. Rest assured that when he finally steps down from his post (forcing him out will require tectonic pressure) the entire European Parliment, and Union, will breath a collective sigh of relief.
May the Maths Be with you!
As I've repeated this often enough here on Slashdot, I know what will happen - I'll get modded down and get a few standard counter arguments, so I'll cover them briefly here:
Q: Yes, but what about his grand-children who have not done anything to earn the rights to that work?
A: The creator has the right to do whatever he wishes with his work - including giving it to his undeserving children. The children will then be the legitimate owners and may pass it on further down the generations. If they don't deserve it, don't be jealous - you don't either nor does the 'public'. Having a million parasites is hardly an improvement over having one.
Q: Yes, but it isn't the creator that actually owns the copyright, it's evil record companies and they are represented by the RIAA and other bastards. Why should they have the right to it?
A: The record companies provided the needed cash for the creator and he agreed to let them have the copyright. Again, they may be evil bastards using Mafia-like methods but that doesn't change the fact that they have a right to the creation given to them by the creator. You don't and neither does the public.
(This one comes up very often although I don't really understand how it constitutes an argument)
Q: Nobody is unique and irreplaceable. If there wasn't a Madonna some other artist would have taken her place. As she is not unique, how can she be worth all that money?
A: She is worth exactly as much as others are willing to pay for her work. If you don't like her music, don't buy it. If you think it is too expensive, don't buy it. Do not however try to rationalize taking the music without permission and demanding that your action is considered moral.
Statement: For every greedy bastard that creates for money there are dozens that do at least as good work for free and for the fun of it.
Answer: Great if you really think so. Life then can be much cheaper and varied than for the rest of us who assign enough value to a lot of commercially produced stuff to pay for it. That position is in no way in conflict with what is moral. Use the free stuff if it is with the consent of the creator.
but, and this just may be me, I would say that I would be MUCH more likely to create more music if I had time to sit around doing nothing...but now that I think about it I would probably just sit around half drunk and all the way stoned making up songs about my dog.
But then again I seem to do a fair amount of that right now.
This is all terribly unfair to the instrument makers. They've only been paid once for their work, their artistry. These musicians expect to buy once and use them continually without ever again compensating the poor instrument maker for their effort again. The damned leaches!
Notmysig
More income. We're not in some semi-Communist society where producing one hit entitles the creator to full lifetime support with no possibility for further gain. In a capitalist market with copyright protection, a big hit might mean thousands of dollars per month for a year tapering off to a hundred a month ten years out. Income yes, but infinite wealth no. The incentive to write a new song is another year of living wages and another $100/month in retirement.
The original intent of copyright law was to help stimulate scientific and artistic development by protecting an artist's initial investment, not to provide them income for the rest of their lives.
The first Copyright Act in 1790 only provided protection for 14 years:
How do you get from 14 to 95???
This kind of stuff only serves to imprint on people's minds the impression that EVERY artist and EVERYONE in the music business is trying to leech the general public. We already pay said levies here in Europe. I pay a levy each time i buy a CD to backup my photos, for instance. Who on this frigging earth gave the music people (and I mean studios, artists, etc: music people don't like to be bundled with studios, etc, like this, TOUGH LUCK; if most of them REALLY are all so piss poor they should have numbers to do something about it or STFU) any GODDAMN right to getting paid for this? I WOULDNT care if the artists were really getting compensated with this money, and I MOST CERTAINLY don't care the way things are now. If they want to assume everyone is out to pirate their (in too many instances) miserable "art" then by Jove we ought to do as they want and start copying and distributing everything we can lay our hands on. People say BUHU! but the artist doesn't get paid all the money he should until much later on. To that *I* say: TOUGH SHIT! Get your act together artists. You try or let other artists try to fuck with the public, and then complain the public fucks with you, HA! By the way, in case you haven't noticed, I'm pissed at this crap (I DO buy CDs to backup photos, lol).
In the end, there can be only one!
The European Commission is not the same as the European Parliament. The latter has the real power, though not often exercised, while the latter is able to act autonomously in many respects, provided they do not attract too much attention from the general public. The main function of the European Commission thus would appear to be pandering to private interests, while the European Parliament is responsible for upholding the law and acting in the interest of the general population.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Imagine if patents worked that way and Edison decided to rest on he laurels after the phonograph. There would be no motion picture camera, no light bulb, and no electric grid.
Do you really think what motivated Edison's creations was solely a profit motive? That had there been a stronger patent system in place he'd just have said 'screw it, I'll just collect money on this until I die!'? Most of the people we take potshots in these discussions - the big household names of invention and creation - are doing it because it's what they're driven to do. Usually that drive causes practice/study which leads to continued successes in their field of creation/invention. Most of these people would have been writing books/songs, creating inventions and what not regardless of copyright and patent laws.
creation science book
This seems like another example of political misdirection. Many people that want to become professional musicians have such a difficult time getting a record deal that they will sign anything. Record companies know this, and so you either accept their terms or you don't get a record deal. They know that there are thousands of others just like you that would sign the contract. So, they basically make you sign away your rights to the music. They own the music you wrote, not you.
I believe many of us have heard of the example where John Fogerty was sued for sounding like himself, because "The Old Man Down The Road" sounds so much like his songs "Run Through The Jungle" and "Green River" during his Creedence Clearwater Revival years. Obviously, if you can be sued for making songs that sound like songs you previously wrote yourself, then obviously the cry for compensating musicians in this case is a red herring. Granted, this is Europe rather than the USA, but the political motivations are the same on both sides of the pond and the industry is pushing for international standardization for copyright laws. The real reason they want to extend copyright is so that the record labels can squeeze more money out of classic songs.
If I had mod points, I'd have modded up. Copyright is supposed to benefit the _artist_, not some loosely-defined bunch of hangers-on (which may include family, acquaintances, or the **aa). Let them do something creative for a change.
made almost all of that 2Bn outside the beatles.
Same with the rest of them.
This kind of stuff gives you the warm fuzzies :)
... This by the way is not called corruption it is called European democracy :) Orwell is still with us.
This is clearly not about lonely creators getting their due. Average live expectancy is not 95 years, it is lower. That is ignoring the fact that babies don't start creating at birth already. So this is either to appease heirs to the creators or it is to appease the employers of creators. Now ask yourselves who are doing the lobbying to get this kind of rules implemented
If the majority of copywrite holders were actually held by the creators rather than the profiteers, then the way the argument is phrased, pandering sympathy for the poor artists first before the semi-cryptic catch-all of "labels/studios", only tells me that it was the labels/studios who wrote the statement of justification. Still using the artist to cash in without giving them a dime... cuz it's more like 1/10th of a cent.
This isn't about protecting the artist nor about creating incentive for more art. Those are just nice-sounding justifications that are more likely to sit well with the general public.
This is about specific large businesses wanting to make even more money off of talented artists.
If it was illegal to sell a copyright or otherwise to surrender all or part of the money one makes off of one's own copyright, (thus protecting artists from exploitation by their labels) you would not see such a strong push for extensions and heavy-handed enforcement.
Remember the golden rule: he who has the gold rules.
That's insane, why should someone be able to record a song in their teens and then expect to live off that for the rest of their life?
What gives them the right to work in their teens, and then laze about for the rest of their lives while still raking in the money?
If anything, copyright terms should be decreased specifically to prevent that happening - you should continue to work, or at the least invest wisely, if you want to continue making money... Not continue making money from some work you did 90 years ago.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Yes, I've said for a while, that if we don't stop the corruption of the IP systems, we would find ourselves with perpetual copyrights.
Everytime Mickey Mouse comes up for public domain, copyrights are extended. Ironically, if these big copyright whores had to live by their own laws, they'd never exist:
Let's review Disney's early movies (and latter movies):
> Snow White (stolen)
> Cinderella (stolen)
> Sleep Beauty
> Pinnochio
> Sword in the Stone
> The Little Mermaid
> Beauty and the Beast
And please, don't give me the argument that "well, all of those were in public domain - so they didn't steal them". My point is THEY ARE STEALING PUBLIC DOMAIN.
Disney would not exist today without public domain, the fact they are unwilling to contribute while willing to benefit is sad.
Same with the music industry, look how many old songs are revisited, covered, etc. by artists. Who will never put back into public domain.
***
More so, the artists and the the animators, see very little profit. So really, it's not the creators getting paid for a lifetime. Rather it is corporations who do not age, wither and die. Is it any wonder they're manipulating the law to a perpetual copyright.
There must be public domain. If you are one who thinks that IP property rights beyond a very short time are a good thing. Then you simply lack an education on history. Were we to have perpetual IP rights, we'd have nothing invented today but lawyers. No patents on cars because the wheel would still be IP. No pistons because the lever would still be owned.
***
We need to fight this...and in fact, I believe this is a matter worth the sacrifice of blood. Why? Because I believe it is better to "live free or die" than "be a slave". Right now, this is merely talk of control of CDs. But eventually, this will become the control of minds. As technology advances and we decipher more and more of how the brain works. In 95 yrs, when iPods are merely iMplants. If you happen to recall a song or sing it, you'll find yourself hit with a pay-per-think royalty. Oh, and how long until you're called before a legal system for pirating music (I mean, whistling a tune you've heard).
While that future is afar off, it is an eventual possibility, and that possibility will lead to the enslaving of thought and ideas. Even in the horrors of past slavery, the thoughts within one's mind were always free.
Right now, this is just a political issue. 95 yrs from now, it might be a blood issue.
*shudder*
Because being ni IT I have no job for life any more, It may take me years to get another job (twice so far it's been 8 months, but I'm still young. when I'm in my fifties, I doubt many people will pick me up). So can I get guaranteed income from my past employers to tide me over?
And your idea would lead to the notion that copyright should last until the next work is created. Are you sure???
For some reason, I can get the image of Minnie Mouse giving this guy a BJ under the table outta my head.
I can't believe this greedy ignorant nonsense going on with copyright law.
I found a list of some of the more popular tunes from 1913 - 1919. If you recognise any of them, you're in a tiny minority of listeners.
1. My Mothers Rosary performed by Charles Harrison
2. She's The Daughter Of Mother Machree performed by Charles Harrison
3. When You And I Were Young Maggie performed by Charles Harrison
4. Silver Threads Among The Gold performed by Elsie Baker
5. Have A Smile performed by the Sterling Trio
6. Till We Meet Again performed by Charles Hart and Lewis James
7. Roamin In The Gloamin performed by Harry Lauder
8. A Little Bit Of Heaven performed by Charles Harrison
9. Singapore performed by Arthur Fields
10. Some Day I'll Make You Glad performed by the Sterling Trio
11. That Tumble Down Shack In Athalone performed by the Sterling Trio
12. Smile And The World Smiles With You performed by Lewis James and Peerless Quartet
13. Peg O' My Heart performed by Charles Harrison
14. When I Dream Of Old Erin performed by Arthur Clough
15. Where The River Shannon Flows performed by John McCormack
16. The Greatest Battle Song Of All performed by Irving Kaufman
17. On The Road To Happiness performed by Samuel Ash
18. Somewhere A Voice Is Calling performed by John McCormack
19. Once Upon A Time performed by Fred Hughes
I found the list here where you can buy a CD of the stuff. Frankly, I have intention of doing so, because barbershop quartet never flipped my crank. My point is that NO ONE will remember the average piece of music, and the copyright is already too long. I think it should be reduced to 14 years.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
How about 'life of the artist'? Once the artist is dead, the song is released to the public. No more vulchering by the family members, no more agent fees.
Bearded Dragon
....if you buy devices to store your own original media, you first have to pay copying levies to every other artist in the E.U.??? WTF?
As established by court precedent the minimum number of notes required for a song to be "infringing" on another is four. It would not be difficult with modern computing to create a database of all copyrighted songs and start suing songwriters and musicians who "copy" a previous work. The chilling effect on new music would be as bad or worse than software patents are now for the software industry. There is only a limited number of possible note sequences, after all...
Regardless, the purpose of a rich public domain is to allow artists to draw on the works of the past to create the art of today. Perpetual copyright makes Big Media (TM) the gatekeeper of our cultural history and makes it a crime to derive new works from the old. The issue at hand with too-long copyright length (IMHO) is not the creation of innovation, it's the prevention of it that will inevitably occur.
Travel the Galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms...
And why don't you get off your fat arse and finish it quicker? If I took 17 years to get 1/8th the way through a project, I'd've been sacked about 16 1/2 years ago.
PS your book will have a new copyright.
There is some subjectivity to this argument, but we can also apply some sound numbers.
The purpose of copyright is to provide an incentive to authors to create works.
To evaluate this, we must calculate the number of works that would be created, given a certain copyright term.
For a given copyright curve, this is going to look something like y=ln(x), where x is the term, in years, and y is the number of works created.
To then calculate the number of additional works created, we calculate the marginal increase for each year, which for ln(x) will be 1/x.
So, once we are able to put some suitable constants in to get the scales right (which would require some careful study), we will see that there is a region of copyright where adding additional years will create a significant increase in works created, but as the number of years increases, the marginal benefit for adding additional years will be minimal.
Given the above analysis, and given the great many works that were created, even prior to the Copyright Act of 1976, it seems like the current copyright terms are more than adequate, and that there is no reason to increase the copyright term.
Where this gets subjective is when we consider where on the curve we really should be. There will be a region where the slope of 1/x (the margninal increase in works created per year of copyright added) is changing dramatically, and within that region there is some legitimate debate about where the copyright term should be set.
However, that point is a term substantially lower than current terms. Evidence from patent terms shows that the "framers copyright" of 14 years was about right, maybe 20 is better (current patent terms), but it was the right order of magnitude. Lots of patents are still generated despite their dramatically shorter terms than copyright.
So, it isn't necessary to talk in subjective terms to show that current copyright terms are way out of line with their stated purpose of promoting the progress of science and the useful arts.
"People are living longer and 50 years of copyright protection no longer give lifetime income to artists who recorded hits in their late teens or early twenties".
Why should it? All other have to work for their income, why not artists?
Copyright is to assure there is some incentive to create works. How many artists are not creating works because in 50 years, if they are still alive, the royalties will dry up?
The work of the artist is the service of creating art. Should a film producer, who wants to incorporate the musical work of an artist be able to use it for free in his own work, or should he have to license that musical work. Sounds like you are arguing for the later,but would you allow that director to film in your home for free, just because he thought your place had the perfect look for his film, or would you expect to be paid for providing that service to him? As to your last point that nothing new is created, you are wrong. A new film is created that derives some of its emotional power from the previously created song. Your argument also completely ignores the intrinsic value of art itself. A society that does not value art (and which does not support artists) is a soulless society.
Copyright should be free for about 20 years then after that you should pay for it with an annual fee. Anything worthless therefore drops into the public domain.
No sig today...
Let's test the honesty of the 95 years "for the artists" claim:
Ammend the proposal so that - no matter what - full possession of copyright returns to the artist at 50 years (the current term, I believe).
Two Words:
Screw. That.
Extended Executive Summary
The CORRECT response to all of this is to first review and relearn the function of copyright, then recognize that the ORIGINAL terms are most effective at balancing the interest of the creator with those of the public. The function of copyright is to benefit the public good, by providing REASONABLE protection for compensation for creators, while encouraging them to continue to create, rather than retain copyright forever.
The REAL solution is exactly the reverse of what's been proposed. The term for copyright should be REDUCED back to 14 years or so, after which the work reverts to the PUBLIC DOMAIN, and it should prohibited that it be extended.
This serves to provide a reasonable period to collect appropriate fees and royalties, after which the interest of the public should supersede that of the creator. And, the beneficiary of this should be the REAL creator, not some amorphous RICO entity of an *IAA, or some monster publishing house. For collaborative endeavors (movies are one example), it would be reasonable that there be a trust composed of the creative agents, so there is still a mechanism to compensate organizations and corporate entities engaged in such activities. Their interest should be of no greater duration than the human creators of record. (If anything, their rights should be more limited, since a corporate entity has no natural lifespan to limit the tenure of their control, and this harms the public interest as a result. This is exactly the reason, by the way, such entities keep pushing to extend the span of copyright, to the public's continuing detriment.) Time-limited trusts, by comparison, may be created with such a built in lifespan, after which they expire.
Summation
Screw Disney. Screw the *IAA. Screw the Studios. Screw the estates of dead artists. Mickey should have entered the public domain years ago, along with the vast majority of the music, television and movie catalogs currently out there.
To all of You. Get over it. Stop trying to steal from the public coffers, and the collective public legacy. Go create something new. For new things, you should be rewarded, at reasonable rates. But only for an appropriately transitory period.
n/t
What a joke... the artists.. the artists, we all know this is about the publishers wanting more copyright not the artists.
This may be a dupe comment. I'm at work and shouldn't be posting, but:
The protection of the intellectual property that is a cure for cancer, that is a patent, would last (in Canada at least) 20 years. Does this mean that the latest brilliance from Britney Spears is 4 times more valuable than a cure for cancer?
Cheers
JE
As in the Bono extension to the copyright act in the US to save Steamboat Willy from becoming public domain. The issue here has very little to do with the individual artists. That is only the emotional appeal. What it has to do with is big corporations that buy those copyrights and have those as paying assests. They want to preserve the gravy train.
Now its true that some artists maintain their rights but I think if you look at the vast majority of copyrights they are owned not by the artist or creator but by a company, some companies I understand only hold copyrights and get revenues from them.
I fully think artists should benefit from their creation and that copyright protects them. But for copyrights to live so long and become a commodity I think is wrong. I think we should change the law so that the copyright is not transferable and that only individuals would hold copyrights not corporations.
If you look at some of the standard agreements you sign on employment. Your creative work is usually asigned to the corporation you are working for. Just because they payed for it I am not sure they should own exclusive rights to individuals work. They obviously benefit from that work but just the salary paid to an individual seems like cheating the creator out of his own creation.
What if we had copyrights and patents owned by only individuals, non-transferable, non-sellable. Then the businesses would have more incentive to retain creative people and creative people would have incentives to ally themselves with business in a synergistic way.
I think the length of 95 years probably stifles additional creative work as someone can rest on their laurels.
I understand the song Happy Birthday will be copyrighted until 2030 (the orginal creators are dead and the copyright was gotten in 1935 even though the tune was written in 1893. So that is why in a resturant you don't hear the staff sing Happy Birthday, because they would have to pay a royalty.
http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/birthday.asp
So my point is that the 95 years mostly serves corporations (or privately held pirates).
Lets just be clear about who is getting the majority of the money's here.
In the Capitalist system, where there is little to no social security, how do these "artists" pay for their retirement and medical care? How are they to perform new music suffering from Alzheimer's and arthritis?
Or have a revolution. Or suffer the consequences of inaction..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I have no problem on buying a song if I like it. The royalties should go to the artists, but they don't. A major portion of them go into the RIAA or to pay for managers, sound tech's and others who work on the production. I have no problem with that either, a days work for a days pay.
The problem that I have with this is when you purchase a song in the stores, you buy it on some type of media, LP, CD, cassette tape or others. I pay the royalty to the artist for the right to listen to that song on. The artist gets paid for their work. If I have the technology to move that song over from 8 track tape to CD's and I can listen to it, then why should I pay the recording companies and the artist royalties once again? I should pay for the first type of media and as long as I do not want another version of that song on different media that is professionally produced, re-edited and mixed, then I should not have to pay for it once again.
My complaint is that if I have the technology to write my own media from the media that I already own legally, then I should be able to and not get threatened with jail for doing it. If I want to pay someone else for a better version, then I should pay for it.
But the recording companies should drop this BS about how it hurts the artists. It threatens the executives in the recording companies and everyone else that work there.
Just my 2 cents worth.
I think we had Cliff brought out to help push for this already.
I think part of the reason it did not happen was that...
- He has plenty of money and does not need welfare.
- He is bringing out new stuff on occasion anyway
- If someone is no longer getting money out of something this far on, they should have found alternative incomes by now anyway.
- All the others advocating it did not seem poor either.
This is just the parasites trying to force on us what has already been rejected.I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
There's two entirely different beasts in copyright:
* Composers and lyricists get a monopoly until 70 years after the death of the longest living author.
* Performers get a 50 year monopoly from the moment the recording was published.
I could *tolerate* an extension of the life of the copyright, but the *tax* on *blank media* is what I as a consumer and potential business person *cannot* and *will not* tolerate. My property is my own. That includes the black CDs or DVDs or whatever media I have to use to transport data for my business or my pleasure (in this case, it's source code for programs I design). All in all, an artist should benefit from their labor, but not from the labor of others, especially those that use digital media for other purposes other than pirating software, music, and/or video. It's a crime to tax people, especially for their own labor and effort. All this proposal does is make a chilling effect on the whole digital economy; from OS makers to game developers are going to feel this pinch. And they themselves will not be able to fully accrue for the loss that such taxes will bring. And oddly enough, this jackhole that's proposing these levies will probably be the one getting a fatter salary because of them.
No wonder I'm a market anarchist anymore.
I've gone through several hundred DVDs and CDs at work. I've been getting copies of Solaris, Linux and other freely downloadable OSes. I've been archiving user created data. Our file servers exclude .mp3 and many other file types to cut down on non-work related material.
So, there's a levy on the blanks in case I might be infringing. Does that mean I get to infringe for the value of that levy?
Why should a creator (author/musician/inventor/whatsit/whosit) be entitled to "lifetime income"? It's a nice thought, I'll admit that, but so is winning the lottery or the idea that government should pay me a pension that lets me live in castles, but let's get real here. Creators need to be more than one-trick ponies, so limit the duration. Force them to continue to create, knowing it's not a free ride based on one hit piece of work.
I plan to send the following letter to Oliver Drewes spokesman for Charlie McCreevy EU commissioner and BBC. As I'm not native english speaker can somebody please help me as a human spellchecker. Ideas are also welcome. Thanks.
Dear Charlie McCreevy,
I read your proposal for extended copyright period and I'm deeply concerned about the motivation, solution and consequences of this proposal.
The purpose of this extension is to give old artists money for living and not for the record companies. To be more precise the target of this law will be "session musicians and lesser known artists" in their 70's for which "royalties are often their sole pension". In your press release were not presented any figures about how many artist will be impacted by this law, how much are they receiving now from royalties and what is the real need for this law. In all European countries the elderly people are having a decent protection and I do not see the reason for artists to be privileged compared to other people. Being paid 50 years after you did something is happening only to artists. I understand that being an artist is not easy and is not for everybody but the same is valid for a hundred other types of jobs.
The solution of extending the copyright from 45 to 90 years baffles me a lot. The reason is that some artists are in their 70's and "given life expectancy in the EU - 75 - 81 years" will soon be without protection. So the solution is to add 45 years until they reach the age of 115. This is more than the life of the artist and sound more like the american "Mickey Mouse Protection Act". "For session musicians, the record companies will set up a fund - a substantial fund reserving at least 20% of the income during the extended term to them." This 20% is coming from "gross income" (highly unlikely) or profit after taxes and expenses? In the last case the amount will be zero as all the media companies will distribute the profit to other companies using the "Hollywood accountancy".
How many old artists are the target of this action? How many artists did nothing in the last 50 years for providing a long term profit like a pension plan/royalties, are in an acute need and are not covered by the actual social laws valid for all persons in Europe?
Before proposing any extra taxes and copyright extensions do you have some figures about the amount and distribution of actual copyright levies (for phones, blank cds etc.)? I found that these taxes in 2005 amounted for 555 million Euro. How much money do artists actually receive now from these taxes? How can you make sure that these extra money are going to the artists and not to the record companies?
Regards
Well the Beatles did make a lot of money from record sales, but it's not going to be anywere as much as you think they did. They probably make a hell of a lot more from people using their songs in advertisements, bars, resturants, and playing their recordings on the radio.
And the Beatles are going to be the exception. The vast majority of artists never make any significant amount of money from record sales. The only people that do are bands that are successfull enough and lasted long enough that they lasted past their initial signing agreement and were able to negotiate favorable terms. Those are the _tiny_ minority of bands.
The average young entertainer you see on MTV or VH1 would of made more money working for McDonal's then they ever did from record sales.. Sure the $$ signs may be good, but once a band pays off the cost of studio time, equipment, management, (which they all pay from proceeds) it's usually not anything.
In fact many bands that made it big actually ended up in the _RED_ because they thought they were making millions of dollars and they were not.
The fact is that bands make more from T-Shirt sales at their concerts then what they make from people selling albums in stores. This isn't to justify piracy, this is just how it works. Just the facts. Touring is how they make their living.
If bands made such a shitload of money from record sales then why the hell are they touring around in their 40's and 50's well after their time in the sun when they sold platinium records? Ever watched 'VH1 were are they now?'... what percentage of those folks are raking in the big bucks from their 'best of' albums being sold? (hint: very very small amount)
The big labels are lying to you. They are lying to the public and they are lying to the artists they sign up. It's all a joke. A snow job. The glitz, the glamor.. it's all a show. It's part of the entertainment. Very few of the bands you hear on the radio or see on TV are ever going to get rich from what they do. Not unless they become a produce or continue to crank out albums so they exhaust their original contracts and go on their own.
In reality the majority of bands that get 'signed' don't ever get to release _one_ album.. the record agencies will sign them up just to make sure that other labels won't get them.
Streamboat willy close to expiration again?
I sure wish that I could get payed for work I did 95 years ago. . . Oh, wait, I'm only 30 years old. :-p
Still, where does this notion come from that someone deserves to be paid for their entire life for work they did 30, 40, or 50 years ago? Heck, I don't get paid for work I did 3 weeks ago. . . *grin*. I got to go with the people that say that Copyright should be limited to 10 or 20 years at most.
I understand that copyright is not quite like normal employment. For example, a company might employ hundreds of programmers for several years to create a program. Can't expect them to re-coup that investment and make a profit in 1 day (to take things to an extreme). But, if you haven't made a profit in ten or twenty years, guess what. . you never will.
It's truly unreasonable to expect that companies or people should get paid for work they did decades ago.
It's already life+... He's lying.
Unless you wrote "Happy Birthday to You", which was registered in 1935 and is still in copyright.
I mean look at Keith Richards. That will probably only be a fraction of his lifetime.
Make copyright perpetual. Also make copyright holders pay rates to keep their copyrights. Then when the work becomes unprofitable, it will enter public domain.
That something like this could happen here, in the EU... This is based on pure greed, and achieved by lobbying.
I think somebody should check the commissioner's funding, and how that insane idea got into his head... then send the result to the European parliament, accompanied with accusations of corruption.
People are living longer and 50 years of copyright protection no longer give lifetime income to artists who recorded hits in their late teens or early twenties, he said.
My heart fairly bleeds for them.
Really.
Gee, fifty years just isn't long enough to provide lifetime income from the creative process.
Why exactly is it that we need to be concerned that someone receive *Lifetime* income from work? I'm all for people benefiting from their creative process, but there's no interest in making sure a ditchdigger gets lifetime income from contributing to society. My father no longer gets income from the jobs he did ten years ago, and the Air Force quit paying me for fixing jets pretty much the day I quit doing it.
Just - *stop it*. You don't need income for my legally copying a cd under fair use, and we won't charge you an extra fee *every* time you utilize a ditch, road, internet connection, or any of the thousands of other things that you used and FUCKING ONLY PAID ONCE FOR!
God I'm sick of these people. I'm happy to make some special concessions for creative work, but get over yourselves - you're writing a book, not lowering the total entropy of the universe.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
Some of you are complaining about companies for doing this. Yes it is the companies that want all the money. Welcome to capitalism. Enjoy your stay. Artist's, animators, writers, all of the people that actually create are usually more interested in creating than making money. That's where the big capitalist business come in and hire these artists, then steal their works with "copyrights"! It's absurd. What's even more absurd is that people actually pay for music at all. I can understand paying for the costs of production or a show, but just paying $20 for a cd with 10 songs on it? Find a local band and they are sure to give you a cd for maybe $5 with the same amount of songs. All the money is being funneled into the company's pocket. I am not sure about other countries, but in the USA companies benefit way more than people, and they are even allowed to break law and have special rules that ordinary people don't have. Again, it's all about money. Money is the root of all evil. I know that's cliche, but it's true. Capitalism = evil.
I mostly remember McGreedy as the guy who was (and is again) fighting tooth and nail to introduce US style software patents enforceable in the EU.
The problem that I have with this is when you purchase a song in the stores, you buy it on some type of media, LP, CD, cassette tape or others. I pay the royalty to the artist for the right to listen to that song on.
In the US, at least, no you do not.
You merely are buying the copy. Access to the copy (which is easier if you own it) is where you get the right to listen to it.
Copyright deals with who can make that copy, who can sell that copy, who can publicly perform the music on the copy; it does not deal with merely listening to it. Since that isn't the subject of copyright, the copyright holder has no exclusive right over that which he could possibly license to you in the first place. Attempting to do so would be as much of a fraud as selling you the Brooklyn Bridge.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
A lot of you are talking about getting paid for your day jobs / average work for years after you finish.. like artists. The problem with your theory is it's not apples to oranges. The best example would be a movie. Suppose a movie costs $100 million to make. You would need to find a single buyer for $100 million to break even, or else be able to sell it to millions of people for much smaller chunks over periods of time. Now those of you who want to get paid over years for work you did would have to charge per use, and a fraction of the cost.. Let's say 1 penny per use. Not many of you would be happy with that scenario.
So why such angst for artists who can't charge what they need to in order to cover their cost to a single person, but instead choose to charge much much smaller amounts to a thousands of people over a period of years.
(I'm for copyright, but for a realistic length of time.)
This will completely discourage new ideas. If all that people have to do is make one good idea and profit from it forever, what will KEEP anyone in the creation of music?
Wow, what a racket.
Oh, and just so that we know who is really behind this, they want to up the GEMA (=German version of the RIAA) tax on blank media, whether or not you use it copy copywrited material.
What a buch of crooks.
This is all a bunch of crap. If their goal is to make sure an artists doesn't lose his copyright while still alive, why not just have it say, "a copyright expire when the artist that created it dies"?
But of course we know that's not their goal. Their goal is to extend it out as far as they can, so royalties can go on as far as possible.
eTrade SUCKS
So artists get to live at least 105 years? I guess I should adopt their lifestyles to extend my expected lifespan with several decades.
"Those innocent fun games of the hallucination generation"
It's interesting that the main reason given by the Commissioner is that some artists who had a hit record 50 years ago will no longer get a regular income. This is Slashdot, and I don't need to rehearse again the arguments about the true purpose of copyright being to benefit the public, not artists or publishers. However we should note the emotive argument here (if you don't extend copyright, poor Cliff Richard might starve) and maybe do something about it.
The Commissioner said that CD of out-of-copyright recordings cost just as much to the consumer as copyrighted ones. If the record companies really cared about the artists, they would voluntarily pay royalties even though copyright doesn't require it; after all, they are passing on the cost to the consumer. But remember Radiohead's recent album release where you pay what you want to download it. It is likely they got more money that way than by a normal record deal. So how about a site to download out-of-copyright music recordings that lets you pay as much or as little as you want directly to the artist? The artists might get rather more money from this site than they would from the meagre royalties the record company used to pay them when the recording was in copyright. This would draw attention to the public domain and help demolish the myth that the copyright lobbyists only have the artists' interests at heart.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
As was said before: artists won't stop creating even if they are not payed.
I can assure You: a good artist won't stop creating when he will earn too much money, because it's not the money he wanted in the first place when he started to be an artist. a BAD artist will stop, but if everybody likes to buy works of a bad artist - WHO CARES, let them be rich and get the hell outta market.
And thats a GOOD thing, getting bad unmotivated people out of the scene.
being an artist as a creator is not even remotely similar to getting payed every month in a corporate seat, or working behind the counter. European people knows it too well, as we (i'm an european musician) had those problems for ages.
By cutting the copyrights You will just make good artist get a job behind the counter and not doing their GOOD stuff due to lack of money. Why? because big money comes from promoted touring, and a CREATIVE artist don't have time to tour with his stuff. He just starts something new, and You can't live from clean air only.
That was the case of very much every single big name I can remember, with notable exclusions, but even great american jazz musicians we now love to buy re-editions with never got the cash at the end of their lives. And instead of giving last concerts with NEW material, they were working hours in a supermarket or living as bums somewhere, forgotten as men, idolized on CDs they didn't had copyrights to.
I know that long copyright won't cut it in the states, You have the musical market turned upside down, where bad musicians are promoted because they look good and have the time to tour, and the music is either bad or created by someone else (not in everything but still it's the majority).
In Europe is actually "au contraire".
Don't be jealous about giving Your money to artists You like. Some people can't live without this support, and if they can't it doesn't mean they are worthless as creators.
nikola
Why do I have for the same song over and over on Phonograph, 8 track, LP, cassette tape, CD, iTunes and MP3 ????
There is no good reason for someone to make money off of (and more importantly retain exclusive rights to) something they did 90 years ago.
There are plenty of reasons not to:
* Doesn't promote the advancement of arts and sciences in given fields.
* Relegates the person's work to obscurity (who the hell would pay for recordings from the early 1900s for example - if they were not in the public domain, no one would even know they exist).
* Doesn't serve the public good from a cultural and historical perspective.
* It's not morally justifiable - particularly given most people have to work every day of their lives to make ends meet - 75 years is enough to milk it, and I think that is too much.
* It sucks money out of the economy that could be used to develop new works - thus stagnating the business. Of course this just drives new artists into the Open Source/Indy arena - further shrinking the traditional record labels and limiting their influence - so that might not be all bad.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
No special interests of note? He's one of the major backers of US-style software patents in Europe. (Strange that Microsoft Europe is based in Ireland...)
I want to be paid for life too for work I did in my teens.
The Internet Book Database
I worked in a factory for two years in my early twenties. Absurdly enough, that does not give lifetime income to me. New legislation is obviously needed.
Give me your name, address, social security number and bank account and I will make the needed payments. Really.
;)
Thank you for putting all that trust in us rich students. We got money burning in our pockets once we work
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
"I suppose you could hand out free copies of the Mona Lisa to everyone and everything would be OK, but for some reason that seems like a ridiculous idea to people."
I get your point, but that's a bad example. The Mona Lisa was painted in the 16th century, and has been in the Public Domain for a very long time. Want to print up a bunch of copies of Mona Lisa and hand them out? Knock yourself out. That doesn't seem such a ridiculous idea to me. . .
That said, people who think that there should be *no* copyright are, frankly, nutjobs. People who think copyrights should be 90 or 100 years are also nutjobs. Copyright for *limited terms*, such as 10 or maybe 20 years, seem perfectly reasonable. People *should* have a right to control the copying of their works for a limited time. This is Slashdot - I'm sure many people here believe quite strongly in the GPL. If there were no copyright on 'easily copyable' media such as music, videos, and softare, then there would be no GPL. If some company wanted to rip off your computer program, create a derivative, and only give people binary copies - which, by the way, had to be unlocked with some kind of DRM system which forced you to pay for a license, then reported demographic data about you back to the company so they could sell it to spammers, the GPL would not be able to force you to get the company to release the un-drm'ed source code.