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.'"

Comments

Copyright time should be reduced, not increased

[andyh3930]

If I do a days work I get paid a days wage, I don't see why it should be that much different for Musicians.

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.

Cheers Charlie...

[MosesJones]

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.

Re:Sweet!

[rootofevil]

-1, disingenuous.

musical artists make their scratch from concerts, not album sales.

Re:The stupid. It burns.

[Rob Kaper]

Sack him? It's a politician. The best we Europeans can do next time is not vote for.. oh wait, the Commission isn't a democratically elected body.

1. Sign international treaties as minister of a European country.
2. Call this activity a "Commission".
3. Have control over 2/3rd over European law effectively bypassing those pesky democratic decisions made by member states.
4. Sell out.
5. PROFIT!!!

Looks like we can end the profit meme here, someone cracked it for us.

Re:Why?

[James_Duncan8181]

Charlie McCreevy never will. He was/is one of the people pushing for software patents also. I knew I recalled the name. He's also a liar (and the email's in the header - please feel free to sue me). He said this recently about the patent directive: "I've said all along is that what the original purpose of the directive was, was to codify the existing situation." [1]

Oh, and software patent opposition is born of "anti-Americanism and anti-big business protests" [ibid]. Yes, it's true. There is no other intellectual basis for it than xenophobia and irrational hate of capitalism. *sighs*

[1] http://wiki.ffii.org/McCreevy050704En

WHAT?

[Card]

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

The commissioner is either ignorant or lying. I don't know which one is worse.

The chosen term was 70 years from the death of the author (post mortem auctoris) for authors' rights (Art. 1), longer than the 50 year post mortem auctoris term required by the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (Art. 7.1 Berne Convention). (Wikipedia)

He should mean that the artists' children can enjoy the royalties for mere 50 years after their parent has died. Cry me a river.

Re:The stupid. It burns.

[orzetto]

The best we Europeans can do next time is not vote for.. oh wait, the Commission isn't a democratically elected body.

True indeed, but without approval from the European Parliament the Commission cannot do squat. That's how software patents were busted: the commission wanted them, the parliament told them to go fornicate themselves with a pitchfork (648 to 14, that's a pretty clear vote).

And yes, you can vote for the EU parliament.

Re:The stupid. It burns.

[xaxa]

The best thing to do is probably to write to you MEP. Their email and postal addresses are given. I will try and write at the weekend.

True, but doesn't apply

[bkaul]

From TFA:

Most European composers and lyricists currently receive lifetime copyright protection which is passed on to their descendants for another 70 years. The new EU rules would not change that. But the change would mean that performers would get the same 95-year copyright period enjoyed by their U.S. counterparts. In other words, composers already have the 70-years after death limits listed in the Wikipedia article, but performers do not; in the EU, performers only get 50 years of protection on the recording. This change would align EU copyright periods with those in the US. The difference is that in the one case, it's what's written (lyrics, book, etc.) being copyrighted - in that case, it's death of the author + 70 years. In the other case, it's the recording of an actual performance being copyrighted. The time limit is a shorter, fixed period in that case.

Re:Sweet!

[hardburn]

There's actually separate copyrights held on the music, the lyrics, and the recording. Bars and cafes with cover bands are supposed to get a license from the songwriter (I believe there's a flat rate available from an industry trade group), but not the recording (since there isn't one).

The "Happy Birthday" song makes an interesting case study of this. The lyrics appear to have a valid copyright, but the music is public domain. A quarter note had to be split into eighth notes to fit the "Happy Birthday" lyrics (originally "Good morning to you"), but this probably isn't enough to justify a new copyright.

Re:Sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

The explicitly stated purpose of copyright is to encourage the creation of new works

That's a nice myth, until you read this:

Yet a close look at history shows that copyright has never been a major factor in allowing creativity to flourish. Copyright is an outgrowth of the privatization of government censorship in sixteenth-century England. There was no uprising of authors suddenly demanding the right to prevent other people from copying their works; far from viewing copying as theft, authors generally regarded it as flattery. The bulk of creative work has always depended, then and now, on a diversity of funding sources: commissions, teaching jobs, grants or stipends, patronage, etc. The introduction of copyright did not change this situation. What it did was allow a particular business model -- mass pressings with centralized distribution -- to make a few lucky works available to a wider audience, at considerable profit to the distributors.

[...]

The first copyright law was a censorship law. It had nothing to do with protecting the rights of authors, or encouraging them to produce new works. Authors' rights were in no danger in sixteenth-century England, and the recent arrival of the printing press (the world's first copying machine) was if anything energizing to writers. So energizing, in fact, that the English government grew concerned about too many works being produced, not too few. The new technology was making seditious reading material widely available for the first time, and the government urgently needed to control the flood of printed matter, censorship being as legitimate an administrative function then as building roads.

[...]

The system was quite openly designed to serve booksellers and the government, not authors. New books were entered in the Company's Register under a Company member's name, not the author's name. By convention, the member who registered the entry held the "copyright", the exclusive right to publish that book, over other members of the Company, and the Company's Court of Assistants resolved infringement disputes.

This was not simply the latest manifestation of some pre-existing form of copyright. It's not as though authors had formerly had copyrights, which were now to be taken away and given to the Stationers. The Stationers' right was a new right, though one based on a long tradition of granting monopolies to guilds as a means of control. Before this moment, copyright -- that is, a privately held, generic right to prevent others from copying -- did not exist. People routinely printed works they admired when they had the chance, an activity which is responsible for the survival of many of those works to the present day. One could, of course, be enjoined from distributing a specific document because of its potentially libelous effect, or because it was a private communication, or because the government considered it dangerous and seditious. But these reasons are about public safety or damage to reputation, not about property ownership. There had also been, in some cases, special privileges (then called "patents") allowing exclusive printing of certain types of books. But until the Company of Stationers, there had not been a blanket injunction against printing in general, nor a conception of copyright as a legal property that could be owned by a private party.

That's right. Too many works were being created, so they instituted censorship to curb and control the flow of enlightening material to their subjects. Then privatized that, and copyright grew from there as a self preserving reaction, after their initial monopoly had been dissolved. It was nothing more than a shameless attempt to continue that monopoly, at the cost of damaging our culture.

Re:Sweet!

[Mr. Shiny And New]

The thing is, copyright is already "lifetime + 70" for the composers of the piece. The royalties in question in the article are for PERFORMERS. Now, performing music is hard, but so is surgery, and we don't pay surgeons once they retire.

Re:Sweet!

[poetmatt]

Says who? sure. How about the US version: "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."" That's the US equivalent, but if you want I'm sure there's an EU one, otherwise there wouldn't be copyright. Even bad and bullshit laws have to have a reasoning behind them.

So we give you something, for a limited time, so that we promote progress of science and arts (aka we give you some money, so that next time you make more money by making more things). As said above. LIMITED TIME.

Also, chairs and music are not the same. Chairs are physical, and music is not necessarily. Where's an apples to apples comparison? Fact is, chairs can be copied, and a copyright does not stop people from making the same thing as you in their own way or improving it. You don't own a copyright on "the chair"Patent and copyright are different situations.

Additionally, no. People are not forced to pay for anything, whatsoever. You aren't forced to pay for gasoline. Thats the beauty of capitalism. Your money can be used in any way you choose. Paying for which necessities with which money is once again, not an apples to apples comparison. You aren't forced to support any gas company either, for example. Stealing is its own thing completely unrelated. Saying people have to pay for gas is like saying people have to pay for a CD because XYZ person says so. No, not in any economy on the planet, are people in such a situation. There are taxes, but there are not "Forced expenditures".

Oh, and with a house as you came up with, you don't own it. Just because you own the house doesn't mean you own the land. Just like how artists unknowingly give up their rights to an album and its more than likely scooped up by a large record company. Once again another not equal comparison here. Just because you sold your music 50 years ago doesn't mean you deserve new money off it if you fail to come up with a reason for people to give you the money. Being that 90% of all consumers or so, worldwide, generally are happy to give up their money, if you fail to find a way to justify new money then that is just fail.

If you're smart with money, once you have some, you can simply make more with investing. Make that few million and if you're smart you can simply make more at that point.

Musicians don't live 95 years after their music is created. Are you saying that just because you make the next big hit song now, that you, your children, and your children's children should be able to live off your success without having to do something smart with it on order to keep it? No, no support of nepotism caused as a result of this, Thanks.

You may as well say you deserve a copyright forever. If you do so, you'll come up with nothing new, and eventually your profits are going to die off and so will your business. The only thing you can own is what is in your hands. Anything not in your hands, you cannot feasibly own forever in any definition. By context, the minute an idea or thought leaves your head, it is no longer solely owned by yourself.

Re:Sweet!

[cpt kangarooski]

I've never understood why the Supreme Court does not use that as a test of what is a reasonable copyright term.

Three reasons.

First, the issue rarely arises, so they haven't put as much thought into it as they would for some part of the law that is frequently invoked. Second, they, like most people, are fairly susceptible to the idea that the side of authors and copyright-oriented publishers is more apt to be in the right on a copyright case than people who want the works to be in the public domain where everyone can use them in an unrestricted manner, for free. As Lessig said, it is hard to win a case against all the money in the world.

But third, and most importantly, the Court is aware that the judiciary is a co-equal branch of government with Congress, and is neither superior, nor inferior. Thus, it's inappropriate for them to act as a super-legislature, approving or vetoing laws merely because they think they're wise or foolish. They have to be more circumspect in their duties. So they tend to give Congress a decent amount of leeway. There are limits on Congress, but they're not as constrained as some might hope, wanting the courts to permit only wise laws to survive scrutiny.

But as you increase the copyright term, you get diminishing marginal returns. Eventually the yield in creative output is outweighed by the opportunity cost of not allowing society to have unencumbered use of the material. A law that extends copyright beyond that balancing point should be considered unconstitutional.

That's about right. Note, however, that the term length of copyright is only one factor. The scope of copyright (what is protected, what isn't, what exceptions there are to that protection, etc.) is also part of the analysis. Broad copyright with few exceptions is bad just as very long copyright terms are bad.

Additionally, you've set the balancing point too far out, to the benefit of the copyright maximalists. The baseline for copyright is not whether the public benefit of copyright matches the public detriment incurred by having it, but rather it is when we have no copyright at all. If a copyright law produces a net public good less than if there was no law at all, then we'd clearly be better off without the law in question. I believe that there would be more of a net public good at that point than the one you describe (since there are, after all, other incentives for authors besides copyright, and for all works to be in the public domain is entirely in the public interest).

Of course, the ideal we're aiming for is not merely a law which is equally as good as, or only marginally better than, no law at all. What Congress should aim for is whatever copyright law produces the greatest public benefit and the least public detriment, i.e. the greatest net public good. Just barely permissible isn't really going to cut it.

Fortunately, of course, while the Court allowed the CTEA to stand, they were skeptical of it (I believe that most of the justices didn't think it was actually a wise law, just a constitutional one), and indicated that they probably wouldn't let it slide; infrequent retroactive extensions might be okay, but a pattern of 'Add twenty years every twenty years' wouldn't be. We'll find out soon enough, though (unless Congress comes to its senses).