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

Sweet!

[Captain Splendid]

That clinches it, I'm moving back to Europe.

Obviously, Crack is cheaper and more plentiful over there.

Re:Sweet!

[Brian Gordon]

Must be, this is crazy. How do artists need to be compensated for making copies of their work? You own the CD, you can copy it, as many times as you want, give/sell it to whoever you want, period. This imaginary property thinking is getting eerily pervasive.. nobody even thinks to question it anymore, even on slashdot.

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[alext]

Because the only way artists get compensated is via copies of their work?

Re:Sweet!

[rootofevil]

-1, disingenuous.

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

Re:Sweet!

[s.bots]

musical artists who are signed to a thieving record label make their scratch from concerts, not album sales.

There, FYP for you.

Re:Sweet!

[sm62704]

The copyright is shorter. Not short enough; I think the twenty years it used to be here in the US is plenty long, and I say that as a copyright holder.

In fact, there are many at slashdot who want to abolish copyright entirely. I think there would be far fewer of these folks if copyrights were sanely limited.

I don't know about Europe, but here in the US we're not supposed to have lifetime copyrights. In fact, our Constitution specifies copyrights and patents are to get artists to create in order that the public domain be enriched, and that they should last "a limited time." SCOTUS fucktards, ignoring the plain language the Constitution was written in, have ruled that "limited" means whatever Congress wants it to mean.

Since all US laws are based on the Constitution, and the Supreme Court is ignoring it, I choose to ignore all the other God damned laws they write and to hell with them.

-mcgrew

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[KnightNavro]

musical artists make their scratch from concerts, not album sales. So the Beatles didn't make a dime after their last concert in 1966?

Album sales are the sole source of income for many bands that don't tour. Lots of bands and artists that rely on heavy studio production can't effectively take their show on the road and live on album sales alone.

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[dmomo]

I don't understand why even the artist is entitled to profiting for their entire life. An economy has only so much budget for creative works. Every penny paid was generated from productivity. It seems wrong that we are putting production resources towards work that has long been compensated.

- Artist does work
- This costs productivity / resources
- Artist gets paid for work by money generated from productivit
- Amount of productivity / resources paid to artist doubles productivity exerted by Artist
- Every time the artist gets paid for this work, productivity and resources are being poured into a black hole. Nothing is being created. Resources are being wasted.

This is just bad economics. In short, people are laboring, and that labor benefits just one person. We can only afford to buy so much art. As the pool of available art increases, the budget for this does not. So we have less available for new works. It's time to free up those resources to put artists to work!

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[Sparr0]

Then they are in the wrong line of work. The explicitly stated purpose of copyright is to encourage the creation of new works, NOT to ensure the lifetime income of works creators. If they want to make more money, start writing/performing new stuff.

Re:Sweet!

[orasio]

Because the only way artists get compensated is via copies of their work? I don't get it.
If you buy a CD from an artist, is he losing money because you transfer them to your Ipod?
I thought that by buying the CD you were buying a license to listen to the song, regardless of the media. I don't see why an artist should care how I listen to what I paid for.

Re:Sweet!

[dedalus2000]

The idea of working on something for a few weeks or months then getting payed for the remainder of your life seems kind of odd to me. artists can't make a dime for a work half done so some term of protection is certainly in all of our interests but anything past 14 years is corporate welfare. At some point the value of the original work is recouped and further copy protections become hindrances in that they discourage further development based on the original works and further productivity by the original creator. we limit the rights of society as a whole to produce copies of original works in order to encourage production of original works beyond that there is no value social or otherwise in limiting these individual rights.

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[dslbrian]

"Since all US laws are based on the Constitution, and the Supreme Court is ignoring it, I choose to ignore all the other God damned laws they write and to hell with them." Two wrongs do not make a right.

It's called civil disobedience, and when governments lose all moral standing it can be the right thing to do.

Re:Sweet!

[Robber Baron]

Yeah I know I'd like to still be getting paid for work I did 20 years ago! You're still living in that house aren't you? Well I helped build it, and since you're still using it, I should still be getting paid!

Re:Sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Some of them do. I rarely have, unless a friend needed me to fill in for a single date here or there.

Then again, I deal with the writing aspect and not much else. I have a day job that is fulfilling but doesn't pay the rent (working in education *AND* the music industry, you quickly learn what the nation values as a whole, but that is a whole different story).

From helping friends write silly meaningless pop, I've put a down payment on a house, paid off all the debts I had as a youth and otherwise. If it weren't for album sales, I'd get nothing...*SUPPOSEDLY* I get paid some sort of royalties from when bands play their songs live, but I've never seen it (probably because it is assumed that these are the bands on record, they take care of this internally...not that I care).

Most of the bands I've known that have actually made money, it is almost always through royalties and licensing. Its funny, I make more money from a really bad smooth jazz cd that I helped arrange that has been licensed to muzak or something, than I do the traditional stuff (because those fuckers ALWAYS pay their bills and keep their accounting straight...and yes, I do believe that if you are a small business owner playing music in your establishment, you are using it in a broadcast TO SELL GOOD AND THUS I SHOULD BE PAID TOO).

You'd be surprised at how many artists that actually read their contracts make money on album sales.

I'll probably be considered an astroturfing RIAA junior flunky, so I'll just post this anonymously and make it seem even more like that is what I'm doing...

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[eiapoce]

Answer is: Stop paying for music. Once they run out of money they will have no way of corrupting our goverment into these laws.

Re:Sweet!

[utopianfiat]

anything past 5 years is corporate welfare
fixed.

Re:Sweet!

[rifter]

"Since all US laws are based on the Constitution, and the Supreme Court is ignoring it, I choose to ignore all the other God damned laws they write and to hell with them." Two wrongs do not make a right.

It's called civil disobedience, and when governments lose all moral standing it can be the right thing to do.

Maybe. But very few people are willing to go to jail to fight for the right to share MP3s.

Re:Sweet!

[Sparr0]

Write 1 hit song, get exclusive rights to it for 14 years. 13 years later, realize the gravy train is running out and you need to write another song... Sounds like incentive to me.

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[fastest fascist]

What if they don't want to tour, or live performance doesn't fit their music? I'd just like to get this clarified: The claim here is that people have no right to expect to get paid for recordings of their works?

Re:Sweet!

[rkanodia]

I do think that people should be able to get paid for recordings if you want to, but if you don't want to, you know, go out and do a job every day like everyone else does, maybe you shouldn't complain that you aren't getting paid every week living everyone else is.

Re:Sweet!

[arth1]

They do get compensated. Question is for how long they should continue to be compensated for something they no longer lift a finger for.
The whole purpose of the copyright is to ensure progress, not individual riches.

If anything, with the rate of progress being so much higher today than it was back when copyrights first were instated, it would make sense to make current copyrights shorter than what they were back then. Say 5 years. That would ensure that the artists would get a good source of income while working on their next production, and even be allowed to fail once or twice. And it would prevent them from resting on their laurels, which doesn't exactly enrich the world.

And, quite frankly, this isn't about the artist anymore. Since copyrights unfortunately aren't unalienable rights, but goods that can be sold (even before the creation happens!), the real beneficiaries of copyright extensions are big companies who don't create anything, just make money on other people creating.
If nobody were allowed to sell the rights to their creation, only enter short term distribution agreements, then artists wouldn't have to sell their rights in order to make money, because they would not compete with others able and willing to do so. They would be free to switch to a higher bidder or better marketer, a freedom which in itself would cause an increase in worth for their product. But they would have to keep on producing, or eventually the income would drain up.

Regards,
--
*Art

Re:Sweet!

[Puk]

That clinches it, I'm moving back to Europe.

Obviously, Crack is cheaper and more plentiful over there. You missed the part where in the U.S., it's already 95 years for works for hire and lifetime of the author plus 70 years for plain old humans. If you want crack, we're your country.

-puk

Re:Sweet!

[Arccot]

The idea of working on something for a few weeks or months then getting payed for the remainder of your life seems kind of odd to me.

I disagree. There is, speaking generally of creative works, a very high chance long term you will be paid nothing. There is also a very small chance long term you will make alot of money.

Everyone seems to focus on superstar musicians or writers when they think of royalties and copyright. They are the extreme on the bell curve.

Think of what happens for an average writer or musician. He creates a creative work, and somehow manages to sell a little bit of it continuously for the rest of his life (through royalties, direct selling, whatever). The money trickles in, and if he manages to make enough creative works that he can sell, eventually he can make a living at it with a trickle from each successful work, and begins to write full time.

Removing long term royalties would make this next to impossible for writers. Most writers would have to continue working at least part time jobs while getting a trickle of income from their newest works. That is not in the interest of the public at large, when the artist could be creating mildly successful works of creativity full time.

14 years is much too short. 95 years is generally much too long. It should be set up in terms of the author's life, plus a small bit of time past that (5 years, maybe), so the elderly can successfully be published. That would provide incentives for artists to produce a lifetime of work while limiting the chance that creative works will be lost in time.

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!

[Hoi Polloi]

Shouldn't the Egyptian government be paying royalties on pyramid tourist fees to the estate of Khufu?

Re:Sweet!

[poetmatt]

And whose fault is it if they don't want to tour? Not ours? Not our job to supply someone else's income, you know. Whose fault is it they failed to make a product that gives people a reason to want to pay for it? This is why people fail businesses lately, and I have no sympathy for that.

There are plenty of people who make their own CD and bootleg copies of it to make a living for example. Technobrega in Brazil is a great example of that. You're disputing how Much people should be paid for it, not if they should or not.

People are paid for their work in a variety of fashions. You could sell it anywhere. The key word there is in some form you have to sell your music. Just because you made it in the past doesn't entitle you to be paid for it in the future unless you figure out how to sell it.

The intent of copyright is to create a reason for innovation. When you have no financial incentive to create more things, where are you to say that there is innovation?
When a DJ wants to mix your song but can't because you won't give him rights (or even royalties, or not enough royalties), are you "protecting your rights" or stifling innovation?

Re:Sweet!

[Hoi Polloi]

You are so cynical! Don't you know that this is being done for the sake of all of the struggling individual artists and writers out there? Politicians deeply care about them. It is NOT being done for bloated corporations like Disney who themselves originally profited from the public domain. They are not constantly seeking perpetual extensions of copyright protections just to protect their cash cows.

It also being done for Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

Re:Sweet!

[JoshHeitzman]

People have no right to get paid for a single work for the rest of their life. Most people do not get this government privilege and I see no reason why musicians other artists should either.

Re:Sweet!

[Critical Facilities]

Because the ease of recording a work is so great

You know, I've seen this argument used in similar threads a few times and it really bugs me. It completely reduces the art of songwriting/composing to the physical process, which is admittedly easier than ever. However, that does not mean that the ENTIRE process is easy. Recording the song(s) is fairly easy. Writing the songs is hard. I am a composer/musician and I assure you, the writing is the hard part. In the same way that buying paint, brushes and canvas is easy yet creating a masterpiece is difficult.

Re:Sweet!

[KnightNavro]

You're missing the point. Some bands just aren't touring bands, like the Beatles post 1966. They continued to produce great music after they stopped touring (Sgt Pepper, Abbey Road, Let It Be...).

A more modern band may not tour for several reasons. Perhaps they don't gig because he lives in New Zealand, the singer's in London, and the guitarist lives in LA. To make a track, each musician lays down a track and FTPs it to their server, where the next guy downloads it to add his part. Should they be denied the right to make money for their music?

Another example is one or two guys hanging out in a basement studio who lay down six or seven instruments worth of music. Yeah, they could go on tour and play their one or two instruments live while flying in the rest, but I'd feel robbed if that's what I saw for a $20 dollar ticket. Plus, many audiences want to see same band live as they hear on the CD. They could take the huge financial risk of hiring a band, teaching them the music, quitting their day jobs, and doing everything live, but why not just sell the CDs, keep their day jobs, and make enough money to cover the cost of the studio?

Another example is a supergroup or a collaboration where the various members only have enough availability to be in the same place at the same time for one week to create the album, then they have to go to their regular bands.

There is no shortage of reasons that a band may not tour.

I'm not talking about a 95 year copyright being reasonable (it's not), but to say that a band should make all its money by gigging is ridiculous.

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.

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[SerpentMage]

You see the problem with parts of the Slashdot crowd is that they don't write the songs, or do the painting and don't realize how much work goes into the art.

Let me compare this to painting. There are two ways you can go with painting. Painting masterpieces or production art. Production art are originals that are produced within a few days. Artists have to do this because people want originals and not reproductions. And people are not willing to pay oodles for something hanging on their wall. So the artist who paints is caught between a rock and a hard place.

A musician on the other hand can take their time to come up with the next master piece because of copyright and the fact that people accept reproductions. Of course I some people who would never listen to a symphony on a CD and only live. But the reality is that copyright helps people earn livings.

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!

[Chosen Reject]

I think I can understand why it bothers you. Are you the type of person who thinks price is related only to cost? Are you the type of person who thinks price and value are the same? If you are, then that is why you have such a hard time with it.

First, price and cost are two unrelated things. As an example, diamonds cost a whole lot more than they cost to extract from the earth. And there are some things that are priced only slightly more than they cost to produce, otherwise nobody could sell it at a profit (ignoring loss leaders here). So yes, it is hard to create music (cost), but the market doesn't price it that high. Part of the reason the market doesn't price it much is because recording costs are practically nil. That might seem a contradiction, but what I'm really saying is that copies are so easy to make, that they become an infinite good. You cannot create a business around infinite goods alone. You have to sell something other than the copy, because copies are so easy to come by.

Second, price and value are totally separate beasts. As an example, air is invaluable to humans, but a business would have a hard time making money by selling it because it is so abundant. Again, because copies of music are infinite goods, prices come down. The value is still the same. That is, no one values music less just because it's easy to copy, they just get it free.

That is why the only way to make money off of albums is to try to control it with the threat of law and DRM. The problem though is DRM doesn't stop piracy, but instead annoys paying customers[1]. And copyright law is becoming so ludicrous (including what some copyright holders are doing to enforce it) that people no longer have respect for that law.

Artists have to realize that. This is really a business model issue. Somebody above asked what happens if the musician didn't want to tour or the live performance didn't fit their music. They have several options. They can decide not to make their music, they can make their music and release it to the world for free, they can try to control it with DRM or threat of law (as mentioned above, this isn't looking all that good), or they can find other ways to make a profit from it (perhaps commissioned work, or have performances where they introduce each prerecorded piece). The first option doesn't get anywhere, the second option might not make any money but may get them recognition for a job making music (say for movies or operas or something), the third option is what a lot are doing now, but the fourth option can make them money.

[1]I watched Spider-Man 3 the other day and I swear there were at least three copyright notices before I started to watch the movie. That is just stupid. Copyright infringers (which are the people making copies to sell or give away) aren't going to pay attention to it, and are probably going to not copy that part anyway.

Re:Sweet!

[Chosen Reject]

To be honest, the oldest Shirley Temple should have been when her copyrights expired was 6 + 28 = 34 years old. Still not a 6 year old singing, tap dancing girl, but you would think that after 28 years she should have been able to think of something to make money with.

Re:Sweet!

[Incadenza]

The intent of copyright is to create a reason for innovation.

Says who? It certainly is not in the law book. What you - and a lot of others in this thread - do, is attributing a reason to the law and then attacking that reason.

You might as well state that, as most laws, copright law is a moral law. When somebody makes a chair, it is fair that he'd be paid for that. When somebody cuts your hair, it is fair that he'd be paid for that. When somebody teaches you a course, it is fair that he'd be paid for that. When somebody makes the music that you listen to, it is fair that he'd be paid for that.

The fact that you cannot 'copy' the chair, and as such either have to pay for it (considered morally right) or steal it (considered morally wrong) does not make it morally right to copy the music without payment. You see, you try to double negate your morals here: when it is not stealing (because they product is still there) it is ![morally wrong] so it must be [morally right]. I'm sorry, but that is not how morality works.

Whose fault is it they failed to make a product that gives people a reason to want to pay for it?

Come on, who want to pay for _any_ product? You only pay for products because you _have_ to pay. Nobody wants to pay for gasoline, but it makes people feel bad when they nick it from the neigbours car, that is why they fork over the money for it.

Just because you made it in the past doesn't entitle you to be paid for it in the future unless you figure out how to sell it.

Oh yes it does. The fact that I rented out my house for 50 years or so, doesn't give you any right to squat it. The fact that I sold my music for 50 years or so, doesn't give you any right to copy it. You know, you can look at this copright expiration date from another point of view as well: because we consider eternal copyright (where copyright would be passed along in the family, like real estate) immoral and impractical, copyright has an expiration date. But the question is not how _early_ to set this expiration date (because we all want everything for free) but how _late_ (because we find it morally right to compensate people for their work). That's why this European commissionar wants to expand copright to 95 years.

When you have no financial incentive to create more things, where are you to say that there is innovation?

Ok, that does is it: hand me over your pay check NOW. You now, it is for the better of humanity. The more financial incentive you have to work the next months, they better we all will be. What a load of bollocks! Who are you to tell people how to innovate? Mr. creative genius himself? You know, having a steady flow of income from past music/inventions/etc. might just give people the time and freedom to do innovative stuff. Or do they have to fill in multiple forms for subsidies at your governmental office, stating in advance what they are going to innovate?

Re:Sweet!

[beav007]

How about "get a real job, like everyone else"?

Honestly, how many people here expect to be able to design a and then sit back for the rest of their lives receiving money for it? You get paid for your time, and then you get given the next project. You stop working, you stop getting paid.

Disclaimer: I am a non-recording (hobby) musician.

Re:Sweet!

[drsmithy]

This whole discussion really points to the question of how do artists make a living? I mean, artists of all genres and media are creators of unique, valuable stuff. But I think the real issue is this:

No, the real issue is that the vast majority of art is not outstanding. That is, there are tens of millions of people the world over who could produce something as good. Ie: if you're not producing outstanding art, your work simply isn't worth much, because everyone knows at least one person who can do it just as well.

Being a really well marketed ditch digger, still doesn't make you anything more than a ditch digger.

(The same applies to all you "programming is creative" types. Yes, a small proportion of programming is "art". However, most of it isn't, and the average "software engineer" is the IT equivalent of a bricklayer.)

Re:Sweet!

[DragonWriter]

If they don't get compensated for their work, there is no incentive to create new things. If you don't allow them to charge for distribution of their work, they are not getting compensated.

Most copyrighted works make most of their money in the first handful years. A 15 year copyright would enable virtually every artist and author to make just as much money as they make under a 95 year copyright.

Re:Sweet!

[Dantu]

Because they can't get paid upfront, unlike the work done by most people.

That's not necessarily true, it's just not "how things are done". As many ./ers know, most software development is protected by copyright, but the programmers don't get royalties, they get paid for the work they did, not the product itself. Copies of something someone has done cost that person nothing to produce, so nothing is intrinsically owed to that person except perhaps citation. The problem of course, is that if goods that can be copied very easily (say a song vs a car) had no additional protection, very few of them would be produced. So we offer a "carrot": if you produce a recording, we will give you exclusive rights to copy it for X years. The purpose of this is to induce people to produce things that society values, NOT to "fairly compensate" people. No one is forced to produce these goods, so by definition any compensation they receive (assuming that the rules don't change after-the-fact) is fair because they chose do do the work for that level of compensation.

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).

Re:Sweet!

[cpt kangarooski]

That's true; you could eliminate copyright for the fine arts and it really wouldn't have much of an impact at all. Picasso didn't make his money selling picture postcards, after all. (Though he was known for dashing things off from time to time in lieu of cash payments)

But the reality is that copyright helps people earn livings.

But that's not a good enough reason. I mean, if you merely wanted to give money to authors, why not just dole it out, or give them a big tax break or something? Copyright is meant to serve the public interest, not to help authors. It just happens to help authors as a means to an end. It's not written in stone that we have to do it at all, though, or that the current laws are the best ones.

What if we could reduce copyright, thus yielding a great benefit to the public in terms of more freedom with regard to works, but without significantly reducing how much money most artists make? Wouldn't that be great? Well, we can do it, because current copyright law is so very far out of whack.

Why?

[nebaz]

Why should anyone get a lifetime income for one thing they created? If they do, why would they bother creating anything else?

Re:Why?

[Hognoxious]

A lifetime income could be a million dollars a week or it could be 25 cents a month. However 95 years is just plain crazy.

Re:Why?

[moderatorrater]

There's a much simpler solution to that problem anyway: make the copyright end when the artist dies.

Re:Why?

[KublaiKhan]

Indeed--aren't copyrights and patents supposed to -encourage- innovation?

Besides, if you're so poor at managing money that you can't leverage 50 years of income into a retirement account, you're an idiot.

Why is it none of the music or movie folks seem to have heard of a 401k or IRA or equivalent, anyway?

Re:Why?

[Jamu]

I think it's better for the artists if there isn't any financial incentive to see them dead.

Re:Why?

[Laur]

But then, when a successful artist dies in an airplane crash their wife and kids will be bankrupt very soon.

That's what life insurance is for. Guess what, my employer will stop my paychecks when I die as well. The purpose of copyright is not to provide a legacy so your wife and kids will never have to do any productive work.

Re:Why?

[mhall119]

because it's not your job to make sure they create something else. It's also not our job to make sure they can live comfortably without working for 70+ years.

It's theirs to do with as they may, and no law you made should be able to take that away from them. And no law stops them from doing whatever the like with what they create. The law stops you and I from doing whatever *we* like with our copy.

why should you get something from them for free? Nobody says we should. What people want is to be able to do whatever they want with that something *after* the artist has been compensated for it's creation.

why would you bother creating anything yourself? Because artists like to create. Most musicians and visual artists in the world today get little or no compensation for their creations, yet they continue to create. Historically, artists have almost never been given decent compensation for the act of creation, and yet history is full of some of the best art (visual and musical) ever created, certainly better than most of the crap we're getting from millionaire artists these days. Inventors will continue to invent without patents, and artists will continue to create without copyrights, because that is who they are.

Re:Why?

[TheRaven64]

Back to the topic a little more, why SHOULDN'T someone profit from something they created for that long? I make a living from copyright, and I am very lazy. I am completely okay with the idea of being paid in perpetuity for something I create now, but I am also aware that it removes my incentive to create more. The purpose of copyright, sadly, is not for me to get rich. It is to make me (and, more realistically, others) create things that enrich our culture. Imagine if Mozart have been able to keep cashing in on his first symphony for his entire life. Would he have bothered writing the other 40?

Copyright needs to be a balance. A good creator needs to be rewarded well enough that they can make more creating than doing something else, but not so well that they just stop. I remember Terry Pratchett saying (possibly quoting someone else) 'when you stop writing, you aren't an author, you're just some guy who wrote a book once.' The copyright system should reward authors, not guys who wrote a book once (and I say this as a guy who wrote a book once).

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

Re:Why?

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Do you actually think people don't make money from works in the public domain?

Re:Why?

[Orange Crush]

Why should anyone get a lifetime income for one thing they created? If they do, why would they bother creating anything else?

Come on, does anyone here honestly believe this has anything at all to do with the actual artists? If someone recorded hits in their teens or twenties, I highly doubt they'll be relying on the pathetic residuals their label deigns to pay them to stay out of the poor house.

The record companies just don't want to give up their revenue on oldies--music from 1958 and prior is now lapsing into the public domain in Europe. This is music from the birth of rock and roll, i.e. Chuck Berry (who still performs at concerts, mind you!), Elvis, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, and loads more. These are classics that people are still buying new CDs of, putting on their iPods, etc. Chuck's not gonna wind up on the streets because Johnny B. Good can be downloaded legally for free, but the record company still wants their cut. *THAT'S* what this is really all about.

Re:Why?

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Guess what, you (apparently) get paid RIGHT AWAY for your work, not in royalties over a period of years.

Fifty years is more than long enough, but that should be whether the artist is alive or not.

Re:Why?

[Russ Nelson]

it's theirs to do with as they may, and no law you made should be able to take that away from them. You don't understand. Copyright is a bargain, not a property right. If you own physical property, you don't need to help of the state to guard it. You stay on your property and point a gun at anybody who tries to trespass (or you hire somebody to come if you need to leave). If you own intellectual property, you cannot stop somebody else from copying it. You need to make a bargain with everybody else (the state) to get them to respect your property. The bargain is that copyright expires.

But copyright no longer expires, so .... people justly feel free to copy, rip, mix.

Absurd

[dustmite]

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.

Re:Absurd

[Quiet_Desperation]

So get a job, honestly, nobody inherently deserves to be able to survive decades from doing something once early in life Or *invest* those earnings from the big hit and live off of that. I have no sympathy for people who were millionaires due to some one time hit and then frittered it away.

Why bother?

[Hexedian]

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...

Re:Why bother?

[noidentity]

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...

Good point! They need to add a provision for guaranteed income even if the work isn't generating any.

I agree!

[Jaysyn]

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!

Re:I agree!

[NeutronCowboy]

Someone give this guy props and mod him insightful. I won't comment too much, since there are plenty of comments already that point out the absurdity of this.

I'll just reiterate: there's nothing special about what an artist creates. An artist either fills a supply niche with material for which there is demand, or they're just doing intellectual masturbation. And yes, I'm dead serious with that statement.

This means that if an artist can't find a buyer, they don't deserve an income. Now, there's indeed the wrinkle of near-free unlimited distribution of digital copies of their work. Sell your song or painting to one person, and everyone in the world has access to the digital copy. Here are the options to deal with this: make sure that the first sale of the song compensates you for the work you put into it, or get enough people to pay for it to provide enough aggregate compensation. The simplest solution for this is still the tried and true live performance. You can't copy it, because then it wouldn't be live. You can easily calculate how much you need to charge to make a living.

That said, I can live with a certain amount of copyright law. This will make it easier for artists to create income and won't make the creation of art into a rat race of who can copy whose popular work the best. Personally, I'd like to see it be as long as a patent: 20 years. If 20 years is enough time to recoup investment in creating new technology, it is enough time to recoup investment in creating new art. Also, I don't think that copyright should end with the death of the artist. I'm sure there are enough people out there who aren't above killing someone to be able to freely copy and perform a piece of art. Not having the death provision in there will remove an incentive for killing. It's true that it's already illegal to kill someone, but it also doesn't mean we have to give killers a reason to kill.

EuroDisney

[Corpuscavernosa]

Man they open up that EuroDisney and now they're extending copyright over there as well... Watch out for Disney China.

Aww, damnit.

[Penguinisto]

I'm personally hoping the make a special category for bubblegum pop music - that crap can be copyrighted for 10,000 years. Sort of like how you lock up radioactive waste based on half-life.

/P

That doesn't make sense

[thisisnic]

Why would artists need compensating for when people make *legal* copies?

Re:That doesn't make sense

[ewilts]

> Why would artists need compensating for when people make *legal* copies?

More importantly, why should an artist be compensated when I burn my spreadsheets to a blank CD?

The stupid assumption is that the blank media will be used to store music only. A levy on "data storage" makes no sense at all.

Two important questions:

[Arcaeris]

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?

Re:Two important questions:

[Penguinisto]

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?

Well, to be fair, the laws of supply and demand eventually kicks in. The heirs of the folks who wrote Ragtime tunes probably wouldn't be seeing a whole lot of royalty income right now. In fact, I think Disney, Inc. and perhaps a handful of others are the only ones I've seen who are capable of zombifying their old stuff and still make some money off of it.

Given the mass of dreck we see nowadays, the incentive for the sognwriter would be to keep them thar royalty checks not only coming in, but to continually make stuff that gets attention. Sure, things have (in many genres) gotten to the point where it's 'all rehash all the time', but it all has a limited shelf life.

As for #2, I agree with you. The whole point there is a greed-play by corporations who can't stand the thought that their business model isn't quite keeping up with evolution.

/P

The stupid. It burns.

[Noryungi]

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?

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:The stupid. It burns.

[alext]

McCreevy is a Commissioner for the Irish Republic. He has previous form in attempting to impose US-style software patents in the EU.

Previously Ireland finance minister, his basic position is whatever is good for big business is good for the EU.

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.

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.

one-hit musicians only?

[a10_es]

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?

oh well

[OrangeTide]

Not like anyone honors the copyright anyways.

Self defeating

[Mprx]

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.

Re:Self defeating

[TheRaven64]

Mod parent up (more). I make a living from copyright, and this kind of proposal worries me. Copyright is a bargain between the creator and society. Society agrees to enforce a (limited, temporary) monopoly on my behalf, which is really great for me. In return, they get certain limited rights now and complete rights later.

Gradually, this deal has been skewed more and more in my favour (w00t). The problem is, 100% of the bargaining power is on the side of society as a whole. If I don't like the copyright terms, what can I do? Stop writing and get a real job? Wow, that would suck.

Let's look at what society really gets. Limited rights immediately? Well, kind of. Unfortunately, unscrupulous copyright holders are trying to take these away with DRM. Since governments haven't done the sensible thing, and made DRM and copyright an either-or proposition, society as a whole gets screwed and loses these short-term benefits. Well, what about the long term? They still get the works falling into the public domain, right? Well, in theory. Pop songs that were hits when my parents were at school are still under copyright. Stuff that written when my grandparents (who are all dead now) were at school is now falling into the public domain though...

Eventually, the population is going to wake up and say 'wait a second, we aren't getting anything out of this.' Eventually? Well, the last poll I saw said that around 90% of the population infringed copyright on a regular basis, so 'eventually' really means 'now.' How long does it take for something that 90% of the population think is morally acceptable to get legalised? If we, as copyright holders, don't start proposing reasonable compromises, it won't be long before the population starts to realise that copyright only exists because they agree to enforce it and decide that a fairer deal is not to enforce it at all. If that happens, then there's really not a huge amount we can do.

Re:Trolling

[KublaiKhan]

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.

I dont mind lifelong copyrights...

[night_flyer]

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

Since when do artists deserve

[rolfwind]

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.

You FAIL

[Mr. Underbridge]

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

Oblivious to the actual economics

[91degrees]

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?

Re:If they don't

[plague3106]

Well, you can earn a living. Except you need to do it pretty often. As in, I need to go to work almost every weekday to earn my living. Why should an musician be done their "job" after one song?

Lifetime income?

[arthurh3535]

"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?'

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.

isn't copyright lifetime + 70 years already??!

[Mirar]

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.

Short copyright terms discourage independent music

[Damon Tog]

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.

More Than Greed

[Nom du Keyboard]

This is more than Greed. It's outright theft of the Public Domain. PD is gone for the rest of the lives of everyone living now - which is no different than forever.

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.

The Worst Sin Of All Here

[Nom du Keyboard]

The very worst sin of all here is the extending of already existing copyrights. This does nothing to encourage of that work, which was already created under the old copyright terms. This simply says, "Give more money to the company who now owns the copyright, because they'll use some of it to contribute to my next reelection campaign."

More than anything else to stand up against is: NO EXTENSIONS OF EXISTING COPYRIGHT TERMS!

Agreed

[V_Pundit]

"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.

A Little More Info On the Ex-TD

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Charlie McCreevy is an ex-Irish MP and a chartered accountant whose biggest role was as Minister for Finance in Ireland.

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.

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.

Are copyrights even held by the musicians nowadays

[PostPhil]

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.

Re:If they don't

[rifter]

Well, you can earn a living. Except you need to do it pretty often. As in, I need to go to work almost every weekday to earn my living. Why should an musician be done their "job" after one song?

That's a straw man, because the reality is that they aren't. Even casting scumsucking middlemen (record labels etc) aside, you can't just make a song and have done. It has to be performed and promoted, and that is why people choose to buy a cd or tickets to their concerts. If they don't deserve your money I guess you are not buying their CD. But don't pretend it's not work just because it is different from the kind of work you might do.

I'm surprised that slashdot, being as thick as it is with people who claim to be artists of a sort (they write code for a living) and therefore make money directly as a result of the copyright law structure would argue that we should throw the whole baby out with the bathwater. Maybe because most of the people answering are not coders or are schmoes who only produce "works for hire" and therefore do not directly benefit from residuals. But if the residuals were not there for the company you have signed the copyright for your program over to; that is, if they were not allowed to sell your work for money, they would have no money to pay you. Furthermore the opportunity is there if you manage to create something in an unencumbered environment (no big corp gets to claim they own your work) YOU might be able to make some money off of those continuing sales. Either way though you are getting paid specifically because there is value to what you produced that people are willing to pay money for. If there was no copyright at all, they would not need to pay you, or worse it would be easier for other people to make money off your work while you get nothing.

The IP laws need serious overhaul. But let's not get carried away here. There does need to be a structure to allow creators of intellectual work to be paid else it's back to the cotton fields for all of us.

Re:Sweet! For them!

[__aajxax2722]

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.

95 Years Not Enough

[vacantskies9]

I mean look at Keith Richards. That will probably only be a fraction of his lifetime.

Perpetual Copyright

[maglor_83]

Make copyright perpetual. Also make copyright holders pay rates to keep their copyrights. Then when the work becomes unprofitable, it will enter public domain.