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EU Proposes Retroactive Copyright Extension
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevy has unveiled a plan to retroactively extend musical copyrights by 45 years, which would make EU musical copyrights last 95 years total. Why? They're worried that musicians won't continue to collect royalties when they retire and this will give them an additional 45 years during which they won't have to produce any new music. Perhaps the only good point is that the retroactive extensions won't take effect for any works which aren't marketed in the first year after the extension. Additionally, while there are many non-musical retirees wishing they could get paid for 95 years after they finish working, McCreevy has not announced any new plans to help them."
Plain old "musicians" rarely recieve royalties; royalties are generally paid to songwriters and publishers. Of course usually those royalties end up getting paid to the Big Media companies that manage to obtain ownership of the copyrights and publishing, not to the artists. But "think of the poor, aging artists!" probably elicits a bit more sympathy than "think of the record companies!".
Caveat Utilitor
They can claim copyright for a bazillion years, still won't address the issue that it is impossible to enforce without crushing peoples freedom of speech. Knowing the EU, which is every bit as much a tool of business as the US government, they will do exactly that.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
since if music is freely available to everyone, the government cannot tax the sales or the income of the artist.
Monstar L
With a 50 year long copyright, if I produced a song as a teenager, I would still own the rights even after the time that I am eligible for my pension. With a 95 year long copyright, if I produced a song, the recording industry would be profiting off of my works for decades after I am dead.
Dang, I wish I could make money for free after my retirement :(
I should see if my boss wants to consider paying me after I go so I have an extra 45 years I won't have to do any sysadmin work
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Your average musician would attain fame close to 20 or later (unless they're child-stars). 95 years after that extends revenue to the age of 115, while most people don't live past 80 or 90; if the much-publicised lives of today's musicians are anything to go by, a lot of them won't make it past 50. I refuse to pay just because someone's arrogant-bastard children think they deserve money because their father wrote a song that sold well.
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
The concept of "intellectual property" is the problem. The phrase was made up to make it seem like a right rather than a temporary government granted monopoly.
Difference 1: If I graze my cattle on your ranch, you will not be able to make use of your ranch - but if I sing a song that you wrote, you will still be able to sing that song.
Difference 2: If you sell me your ranch, the ranch is mine to do with as I please. If you sell me your song, shouldn't the song be mine to do with as I please? After some profitability, songs and other intellectual property should go into the public domain, especially if a large portion of the public have paid for it.
the difference is, if i take your physical property, you have less.
if i take your intellectual property, you lose nothing.
bytes are not atoms.
-I only code in BASIC.-
So they should have invested some of the money while they were making it, instead of spending it on Colombian marching powder, groupies and hotel room repairs.
Everyone else has to save for a pension or end up on income support. Why not musicians?
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
No it means that it applies to works that are already in existence. So for example I own a number of audio books of classic works. The words spoken by the actors on the CD's are long out of copyright. However the recording itself has a 50 year term. When I purchased that audio book I entered into a contract, part of which was based on the fact that the copyright in the recording would expire within my lifetime.
This proposal would change the existing contract of purchase to make me materially worse off. This makes it retroactive.
This proposal however has to get approval from all 27 member countries, which is a tall order given that some, such as the UK have expressed previously that they saw no reason to extend copyrights on recordings.
Actually you don't own your property in the truest sense of the word (yes technically I acknowledge that you own and possibly have possession of it). Ultimately the government owns your land. Just stop paying the land or property taxes and this point will be made abundantly clear. Now if a copyright holder had to pay a yearly fee based on the value (either intrinsic, or perhaps market or realized, something along those lines) of the work in question to keep the copyright I'd be a lot more supportive of copyright laws.
If I graze my cattle on your ranch, you will not be able to make use of your ranch - but if I sing a song that you wrote, you will still be able to sing that song.
Depends on what you see as the purpose of the property. If the purpose of the ranch is to graze cattle, yes, it's being denied to you but if you just use it as a vacation home where's the damage? If the purpose of the song is that you just want to sing it there's no damage but if the purpose was to make money then someone else sharing free copies of it make you unable to do so.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Who is going to benefit from this? From what I've read, this was the era in which it was common for record producers to acquire all rights to the song in exchange for a flat fee.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Even a yearly renewal after a certain point would be nice. The artist (not the record company) would have to fill out some form every year to retain rights.
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I suspect the difference is that laws regarding physical property are strongly tied to the human territorial imperative. Like many other creatures on this planet, we have a strong urge to claim territory as our own, and territorial disputes when they do occur are frequently violent and sometime bloody.
Having a legal structure that helps minimise such disputes makes sense, since it means that we spend less time organising blood vendettas against our neighbours, and more time on constructive activities. Of course, that may depend on what you consider a constructive activity.
On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be any similar deep root territoriality to ideas. In fact, I would argue that converse seems to be true. Human beings have a strong urge to propagate information in all its forms. From jokes and stories, to music, to software - sharing abstractions seems to be a part of our make up.
Which, in my opinion, is why the record labels and studios and software houses are having such a hard time with this. They've coined the term "intellectual property" to try and make it seem as if the human territorial response should apply to information in the same way as it does to tangible assets. But it doesn't; not at the level of human psychology.
And that, so far as I can see, is the major difference. Property laws for tangible assets work with human psychology, and are respected for that reason. Trying to apply those same principles to information is working against human psychology which is why the practice is so widely opposed. Put another way, the first case has a basis in human behaviour, the second one lacks any such basis, and is more of an attempt at social engineering seeking to change human behaviour to suit a relatively small number of people.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Why can someone sit down, drink, take drugs, have groupies and make money for 95 years from a few songs, whilst other people educate themselves, invent something, and only get the right to make money on their invention for 15-20 years afterwards?
Long copyright terms don't encourage the people with the skills to continually create artistic works of benefit to society and culture. Copyright doesn't exist to benefit the creator of a work of art, it exists to benefit society as a whole by giving incentive to create art.
The actual truth of the matter is that people would actually still create music, art, stories, etc if there was no copyright concept. In addition, the creators would still benefit a lot from creating - people still prefer to see Iron Maiden live rather than tribute bands like High On Maiden, for example. Performances are where the money is for full time bands as well.
All of these people who raked in money from when they were big should have put some aside for their retirement, like EVERYBODY ELSE has to.
The facts that you've bundled together there are about as completely wrong as you could get.
Ireland had a declining population for years (not owing to the Troubles; it was the South that was declining, not the North) due to the endemic corruption, lack of personal freedom, and poor educational opportunities.
The corruption was a symptom of a high tax economy which was in turn a symptom of bad economic management during hard times. As far as educational opportunities were concerned Ireland had, in spite of itself and taking into account its size, one of the best education systems in the world - which is seen as one of the major contributors to its recent success.
I'll give you the Iran thing. It's probably not completely far from the truth - certainly up to late '80s.
The two schemes that you mention have absolutely nothing to do with Ireland's success. If I may, I would suggest that it was caused by (1) Technically educated workforce at the same time as the Internet got big (2) Low corporate tax rate (3) English speaking (4) Heavily committed to EU and Euro (5) Very business friendly politically (6) Zero tolerance of corruption and (7) the Good weather?.
If you doubt this, look at what happened to investigative journalists like Guerin and Taoiseachs like Bertie Ahearn.
The criminal gangs in Ireland existed like in any other country. And like in other countries Veronica Guerin was shot because she was investigating them - nothing special there.
Bertie on the other hand had no criminal connections. His problems came because he divorced his wife and was basically taken to the cleaners. Individual businessmen gave him a ton of cash to help him out - unfortunately at the same time Bertie pontificated in the Dail (parliment) that it was reprehensible that any politician should be beholden to outside interests. And unfortunately he got caught - it was illegal, but not in the 'Criminal gangs' sense.
The upshot is that shills like McCreevy are trying to keep the artists on board by proposing that they get something which no other professional gets, (if 95 years copyright for a writer, why not 95 years for a patent?) hoping that Ireland will benefit in some way from tax collection. Apple is also strongly represented In Ireland and can presumably afford lobbyists.
Charlie McCreevy is just doing his job - as Commissioner for Internal Markets, and most other countries reckon he's doing OK at it. He's applying his own philosophy to it which is very much pro IP rights - which is why he's a darling of Microsoft and the Record Companies. (I'm not saying I agree with him).
As you say in Ireland there is no tax for artists - but that means no revenue for government, so that point is a contradiction. There also aren't any record companies her - so you're 0 for 2 there.
The economic downturn and the gradual ending of EU structural funding (supposedly for building railways and roads but actually diverted to building country houses for the rich Irish) is putting a strain on the Irish economy. They need the money.
The downturn in Ireland is, like everywhere else, caused by a combination of High Oil Prices, Low Consumer Confidence and a Global Credit Crunch. Nothing to do with structural funding, which did make a lot of people rich, as you would expect - but not in the corrupt way you are suggesting.
Ireland needs to pay for a very high public service bill - but that will need to be achieved by cutting the bill, not by getting a few more quid off an aging Bono.
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yet if that property is intellectual rather than physical, there is huge outcry.
Why the double standard?
Because intellectual "property" isn't. It has none of the elements that make up "property" in physical things. Most importantly, it is not exclusive.
People fend off, fight for and die for land because if you use it, then I can't. That's not true of music, we can both have a copy of the same song and be happy.
That's why the double standard.
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The summory[sic] makes a stupid statement about getting royalties 95 years after they stop working. Did they even read their own summory[sic]???? It's about extending it 45 years because say you work 60 years, common with musicians, then retire you still get paid for your earlier work.
Your math is as bad as your spelling. Let's be generous and say a musician starts his professional career at the age of 15. If he works for 60 years as you say, then he retires at 75 (possible I guess). The 45 year extension means he can still collect royalties when he's 110 (despite advances in medical science, I can't imagine most hard-living musicians are going to live that long). Of course that's just for the work they did at 15. They can collect royalties on the work they did at age 40 when they're 135, and they can collect on the work they did just before their retirement when they're 170. Tell me again how this makes sense?
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That is all.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
bingo. that's what kids today see.
I very much doubt that the average kid sees anything other than the chance to get stuff for free with little or no fear of being caught. In fact given that it's so prevalent, I expect they don't even consciously register that they're doing anything wrong (in any sense, morally or legally)
Honestly, in my experience very few people outside of slashdot think about it *at all*. As much as we like to think that most people are sticking it to the man because of industry corruption and deal-breaking, it really isn't like that.
It's official. Most of you are morons.