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."

Comments

Who really gets paid?

[clang_jangle]

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!".

Re:Who really gets paid?

[robbak]

If you create something, you have a choice whether to show somebody else. You have the choice to distribute it, or not to distribute it.

Once you give a copy to somebody else, then, for all intents and purposes, you no longer have any control over it.

Copyright gives you an artificial limited monopoly over distribution - nothing more - simply because this encourages persons to create and distribute works. Once works have been distributed, copyright has done its work. It is then a liability to society.

Copyright's purpose is to increase the amount of works in the public domain. Anything that reduces the flow of works to the public domain (like copyright extensions) is against the purpose of copyright.

(With regard to software - for any protection under copyright, I believe that the source code for the work should have to be released. Otherwise, copyright makes no sense, as the works have very limited use when they hit the public domain.)

Re:Who really gets paid?

[Potor]

Math may be creative in the sense of thinking of new approaches, etc., but I would hold that this creative process only leads to discoveries, not creations. In other words, something that was already there, waiting to be discovered, a truth as you call it. That's different than artistic creation, which does add something that was not there in the first place.

Re:Who really gets paid?

[Znork]

for as long as people are enjoying them

Why? Chairmakers don't receive compensations for as long as people are enjoying their chairs. Builders don't receive compensation for as long as people enjoy their houses.

How about this; people get paid for working, and the state interfering in the market to create monopolies favouring certain classes of work is a particularly bad idea.

If you want to argue for why certain groups need extra support, be intellectually honest and handle it as an ordinary welfare system. If you think creative work is particularly heavy and dangerous, or particularly valuable to society, perhaps they should get a lower retirement age? Argue the case and fund it through ordinary state budgets, not hidden away in the uncounted taxation of intellectual monopoly rights.

Re:Who really gets paid?

[Katchina'404]

Musician's right to retirement is pretty much the same as anybody else's :
* Public (state) welfare if existing in country of legal residence (and usually paid for with taxes on Musician's incomes during working years).
* Any sort of private savings.

I'm an IT consultant. When I retire I'll be paid according to the rules above. Why should it be different for other professions ?

Or shall I invoice, 40 years from now, "maintenance fees" for systems I installed in the last years.

Re:Who really gets paid?

[I cant believe its n]

If you have a right to a retirement then why don't they?

As a developer I don't have the right to retirement any more than you do. I earn my pension by having part of what I make put aside for later use. (Not the code, the money)

If you are anything like me, you do what you do not in order to make the money, but because you have to, because you love it. I don't mind the money I make, but if all I wanted was a lot of money, I would go and do something else. Since I don't want my soul to die, I'm staying with software. I suppose you would still create your music?

It is my understanding that the copyright laws where made, not to help artists make a living, but to advance the arts. In my opinion, the proposed law would only hinder new artists in creating what they need/love to do, and not advance the arts in any way at all.

Re:Who really gets paid?

[S.O.B.]

In general, artists get paid well below other professions (and well below what they contracted for). Work is intermittent (Jon Pertwee used to say actors spend 95% of their time unemployed).

Well they did choose that line of work didn't they. No one forced them into it.

And if an artist is still getting royalties after 95 years they're not likely one of the artists on the bottom end of the pay scale that need protecting. As has been mentioned here by others, this extension is to protect the record labels and copyright holders who are very likely not the original artists.

A 95 year protection would be acceptable to me only if it was to the original artist and not transferable. If you buy the rights maybe you only get 25 years protection.

50 years wasn't long enough?!?

[feedayeen]

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.

Re:50 years wasn't long enough?!?

[malkavian]

Hmm.. I worked for an independent label many a year ago. It's not that the larger industry is effective at marketing their best, it's that they're effective at marketing what makes them the most profit.
If you don't sign up, you don't get the deal, and don't get advertising and distribution. If you do sign up, it's on the large label's terms (they get most, if not all, and sometimes all and more from the artist too, to cover 'production costs').
What the recording industry is good at doing is exploiting the wish of people to be famous, and leading them with promises of fame and fortune (by presenting images of the 'successful' pop idols) to sign on the dotted line. Once they do that, they're more often than not pretty screwed.

Re:What's different from physical property though?

[TorKlingberg]

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.

Re:What's different from physical property though?

[Baldur_of_Asgard]

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.

Re:Retroactive ?

[jabuzz]

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.

Re:What's different from physical property though?

[seifried]

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.

The Difference Is Psychological

[NickFortune]

The only reason I can't use your car or house when you aren't using it is because of artificial laws saying I can't and granting you protection from such actions - whats the difference?

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.