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Music Copyright In EU Extended To 70 Years
rastos1 writes "The European Parliament extended the copyright in the EU for the performers of musical works from 50 to 70 years. The legislation will be reviewed in 3 years. The European Commission will consider extending the scope to audiovisual works too." So performers will collect for 20 more years from the date of performance; composers' rights already extend to 70 years beyond their deaths. Update: 4/26 at 12:15 GMT by SS: Reader rimberg points out that while the copyright extension was passed in the European Parliament, it is now being held up in the Council of Ministers awaiting further debate on the issue.
What artist is going to live long enough for this to even matter? Sounds like another way for companies to wring a few more euros from the public.
... do not allow the transfer of Copyrights to other parties.
I suppose it wouldn't change much... the big music publishers would just place the artists into further eternal debt in order to continue to collect their money.
..and the public.
According to the approved legislation, if producers, 50 years after the publication of a phonogram, do not make it available to the public, performers can ask to terminate the contract they signed to transfer their rights to the label.
That would SO never pass in the US.
and that's how people will treat it. It tears down any pretext of respect.
Todos mis movimientos están friamente calculados
I did some work years ago helping to build a commercial building. Several in fact..
I want a cut of their profits for the next 100 years!
They're stealing from me!
What ever it takes to protect virtual property I guess.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I've reduced the copyright duration I'm willing to observe to 0 years.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Copyright laws where intended to promote creativity from artists, but by extending the years they can suck money out of one job they demonstrate they just want more money for less work.
Current social structure won't be capable of maintaining that kind of endless resource redirection. This copyright and intellectual property nonse will have to end someday, and it's not gonna be nice for anyone.
- Human knowledge belongs to the world
The US already grants copyright up to 70 years after the author's death. They're just doing this to harmonize their laws with the United States. But wait, in 2002 the key argument presented to the Supreme Court in Eldred v. Ashcroft is that we extended copyright to harmonize with the European Union.
If it wasn't for this legislation, we would see in the next decade some great early rock n roll get released into the public domain. :-(
TFA doesn't clearly state that for this to come into effect it needs to be approved by every single EU member state. It is rumoured that Belgium, Slovenia, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Portugal, Austria, Slovakia and Romania are opposed to this.
At the bottom of the page: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The EU would do well to actually comprehend that concept.
GStreamer - The only way to stream!
What would be better is if the performers don't ask for it to not be made available, the producers have to. Either way, it's not that great of a thing as there are still problems with it, like the fact that half the time the artist has probably passed by the 50 year mark. I mean, look at the Beatles stuff, even if he wanted to, Paul couldn't sign ask for the contract to be terminated as there's 3 others involved, 2 of which dead already. I definitely don't see this as much progress.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
I always knew corruption is legal in America, but now it seems it's also legal here in Europe. How else can normal thinking people come up with this? No one but the likes of the RIAA/MPAA benefit from this.
I have a theory that every government has a cellar full of lockers somewhere for the politicians to leave their brains before entering parliament.
-- Cheers!
So some moron can make a completely idiotic post and just add "Go ahead burn my karma" and that suddenly makes it insightful? I mean, read the post without that last sentence. How is "God damn fuck" insightful?
I should just start adding "I know I'll be modded down for this, but . . ." to all my posts and then they'll be modded up to 5, no matter how imbecilic they are.
Artificial scarcity does NOT promote science and the useful arts! Let's pray our lawmakers eventually legislate a way for IP rights holders to profit from their creations without creating artificial scarcity. This philosophy has caused countless deaths due to its affects on generic drugs.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
From the fine article: Composers already enjoy copyright protection for 70 years after their death.
Does that mean composers have even more fun in heaven, or the fire in hell is turned down a bit for them?
-- Cheers!
That way, we can all pay royalties to Homer and Plato.
I'm all for this. Let's make it the life of the performer plus a million years, and the penalty death.
Then at least people will finally understand there is no limit to their greed; no work currently in the public domain they don't want to claw back into copyright protection; to them there is no punishment worthy enough to deter the pirate. They will not rest until cave paintings are protected intellectual property and you dare not recall your own speech without their permission.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
70 years is a long time. I agree, it's fine, provided it's limited to commercial distribution. But, perhaps, it should be legal, beyond fair use, to share videos after a given number of years without fear of reprisal?
So, maybe between 30 and 70 years, it should be legal to share, but not profit, from others' works.
All right, I don't see the sense of making it more than 10 years... 20 is all right I guess. 30? Ok, maybe, but 50?!! And they extended it to 70???!
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
I'm actually happy that they are extending the copyright of these works. The beauty is that a hundred years from now they will actually laugh at the fools that expect you to pay to watch the crap of the past century.
Disney and others will suddenly find themselves fighting a loosing war against completely unique Movies, Music, Animation and every other forms of art. Instead of realizing that Walt Disney could possible be remembered for a thousand years by providing a seed to future innovation, they will regard him as a greedy twentieth century materialist that offered nothing for people of the twenty-first century and beyond.
The dark ages provided a clean break and the new age of reasoning. It's quite likely that the arrogance of the artists of today will lead to another age of which they have no part.
William D Howell Sr
"Memory is Fleeting, Inspiration Eternal"
Indeed. Many of us will be dead before the works our parents enjoyed before our conception enter the public domain.
It seems the media industry has much stronger political influence than the people. Something has gone very, very wrong with copyright law. The value society now takes from offering artists the protection of copyright is now extraordinarily questionable.
If these industry groups were so concerned with the future of their artists they shouldn't be calling for 70-year long copyright terms, they should be offering artists a pension.
Copyright should at best be related to the death of the performer - like at most 5 years after the death of the performer. This to avoid weird situations where someone dies during recording or soon after and also to make sure that funeral costs may be paid.
As for movies with several actors - the last one will die eventually.
And also make sure that copyright can only be held by a person and not a company or other organization.
And last - no copyright for works that are related to a religion.
The ability to drain money from people for some old creation that already has made the bulk of money is just annoying and disgusting.
OK, it may cause some sick situations where a company can keep someone "alive" for several years just to get their dirty hands on copyright money!
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Copyright and Patents should be MAX of 5 years. They are supposed to give the author a limited monopoly in order to facilitate future works/inventions. It is to the point of absurdity and, frankly, is disgusting.
-SaNo
Copyright should at best be related to the death of the performer
Copyright should have no ties to the death of the performer. All works should share equal protection. If a performer wants income for life they should invest their money, set up a pension, etc. and/or continue performing.
It seems the media industry has much stronger political influence than the people.
Industry has always had stronger political influence than the people. It's just more obvious when industry actually disagrees with the people.
Mind the frickin' laser...
Seems to me like it's less about the originator of works making lots more money, than preventing anyone but the originator of the works from making any money.
Though the talk about "audiovisual" has me thinking. Are movie scripts/ideas counted as audiovisual, or simply printed works? Cause we all know the movie business loves to redo all movies that have been successful every few decades.
How long does it take the wave to brake and hit the shore shit. They are creating laws that only impoverish us by forcing us to pay for culture when it should be free. Our education will suffer by these laws as well. We are selling out our freedom and the futures freedom with these ridicules laws. I am currently in the process of working on my music cd. I can not believe any audience I might get is going to appreciate me if I use this copyright to protect my creations in order to make money for lazy fucks who don't deserve a penny. I mean for fucks sake, who deserves to be rewarded for their creation after they die, let alone more than 10 - 15 years at best. For your lazy spoiled kids? Either create in a timely manner or GTFO. No one on this planet is a fucking god, so lets not write laws that make them so. Yah Think? I've made up my mind, just me and my creation and a respectful option to pay for my hard work to whom may appreciate my efforts. Fuck these companies and these laws, they are completely insulting, absurd and create a HUGE cultural imbalance for US, the people and the future. FUCK YOUR GREEDY LAZY BULLSHIT 70 YEARS!!!!
Around 20 years? Reasonable. More than 40 years? Bullshit. 70 years? GTFO. This just shows how greedy (not the artists; not to this extent) companies are. In my opinion, anything and everything that is said to be "copyrighted" should just require attribution. I don't know much about this... But it's interesting, and I want to understand it better.
The neighbor was just called from a guitarist who asked "Can my 1 year old be a co-contributor? Would it be 70 years after his death then?"
We are fucked and we deserve it as we elect these shits...
14 years.
The US constitution had a similar copyright law from 1789 to 1909, 14 years + 14 year extension if requested, and you had to file for the copyright and the extension no reward for laziness.
The purpose of copyright is to encourage creative arts not to make heirs and corporations wealthy.
Copyright should at best be related to the death of the performer - like at most 5 years after the death of the performer. This to avoid weird situations where someone dies during recording or soon after and also to make sure that funeral costs may be paid.
This is a really bad idea, the law should not encourage murder. The current law gets away with it only because the material will probably be lost in 70 years.
one whole day without a stupid copyright story. is this technology news or a political rag?
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Okay, so the producers air an infomercial on local public access in Middle of Nowhere, Montana at 3 AM on Christmas morning offering the phonogram for sale for $499.99. Doesn't that technically, according to the letter of the law, satisfy the requirements of "making it available to the public"?
The point of all this is to prevent even marginal works from being commonly exchanged without the threat of legal sanction.
Something sinister about that.
Seriously, if copyright were tied to death + only a short time, JK Rowling would be toast. All the publishing houses would be hiring professional hitmen. And striking it big with the Great American Novel would pretty much be your death knell.
On the other hand, that sound like a good setting for some kind of post-apocalyptic copyright thriller.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
A lot of people in this thread are completely misunderstanding the legislation. It's 70 years period. Not 70 years post-mortem. And this applies to the actual recording, not to the composition (which, as has been already mentioned, is life+70). The difference between the two is huge.
Some performers aren't recognized until they have died - like Franz Kafka.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
...well actually, it isn't, it's just that the appropriate discount rate for the future revenues of a private individual is zero.
Why would 100 inflation-adjusted dollars be worth almost nothing in 70 years? It will still buy you roughly a week's worth of food and household goods.
The reason for the discount rate in NPV calculations is that a large entity has a cost of capital, be it the interest they have to pay on bonds or just the interest they could get by investing the money in some other venture.
It's another question whether or not anyone deserves a lifetime monopoly on their creative output, but don't make the ridiculous argument that any revenues received in 70 years are effectively worthless. They aren't.
... something like 20 years is more realistic. A reduction is what's needed, anything else is a step backward.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
You mean that the performer will be murdered to avoid the need for paying copyright fee?
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Franz Kafka was a writer, not a performer. Franz Kafka was "recognized" during his life. Otherwise, Max Stein wouldn't have bothered translating his work.
Quite the opposite. If her death reverted her works to the public domain, anybody could then publish them, so her publishers would no longer get a juicy slice of her copyright-protected works, as they do now.
Some performers aren't recognized until they have died
.. and? The existing 50 year copyright term would still have protected his major works. He wasn't even 50 years old when he died.
If you want to earn income from creative works then you or those who inherit your estate should market them while they are under the protection of copyright. We shouldn't hold up one or two exceptions to set a standard that applies to every creative work brought into existence.
...they'll have to start paying long defunct composers like Beethoven or Scarlatti. I'm all for RIAA execs being sent to meet the the old masters, to give them the good news. For this purpose I suggest bullets in the heads. Many bullets.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
According to this paper, optimal copyright duration is 14-15 years.
"For every right, an equal responsibility..."
copyright term length
It used to be - 15 years ago, when I tried to tell people how screwy the proposed DMCA would be, and how awful copyright extension laws would be - that people would stare without comprehension.
It's nice that I don't have to explain the absurdity of the current copyright laws around here any more. Everything has already been said, and the younger generation is starting to simply ignore the multitude of imbecilic laws passed by the respective legislatures of the U.S. and the E.U. I sure hope it continues.
Eventually the old people will die off, and will only be a significant portion of the electorate in Chicago. Then things can change.
It is in your publishers' best interest to make your music available in as many forms as possible, since they are getting half of whatever comes back.
And yes, for those of you who R'd TFA, given the current payment practices, I do consider the corporation to be the 'performer'.
...success in the upcoming European Union elections?
This, together with the Pirate Bay's ridicolous conviction and clown-judge, has pretty much assured the Piratepartiet 's(sorry, can't spell Swedish) surprisingly high vote.
My aunt used to say that evil has a tendency to annihilate itself eventually. The RIAA (and the like) are demonstrating this concept spendidly in Europe, and even in the US (though there it will take a bit longer). And I'll be happily dancing and singing (copyrighted songs) on RIAA's grave.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Reality is different - history has shown us far too many persons that have died poor and money earned first after their death.
Just because I gave an example of a person not widely known until after death doesn't mean that all figures has to match for that person.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Try "powerful people have always had more political influence than people without power." Not too likely to change, either, until humans stop having human nature,
50 years? How many artists would be dead or too senile to care by then?
What's with all the "the industry is evil and stoopid and I'm just gonna ignore copyright" comments? Are you really that dumb? You want to go to prison?
Look, people, the CC exists for this exact reason. You want to enjoy socially beneficial creative works? Then stop download or buying commercial works, stop creating and distributing commercial works, and get it through your head that the CC is the right and legal way to circumvent this whole fiasco.
Copyright extended to 70 years. Does that 20 years really change anything? or is this just the result of lots of politician's friday nights?
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*Crosses fingers behind back.
Sorry, you can't listen to this Motzart because we own it.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
I think all rights are transferred to the record companies before anything is published. Is it the artists' offspring who receive the royalty, or the industry groups?
What exactly is your point?
There is no obligation to ensure that a works value is recognized within its term of copyright. Again, if you want to profit from your work financially market it while it is under copyright protection. And, again, we shouldn't hold up one or two exceptions to set a standard that applies to every creative work brought into existence. To do so literally robs society of access to works in public domain.
Immortal corporations will make money off of a few popular artists.
The remaining commercial artist's works will be completely forgotten as if they never existed by the time the copyright on their works expires.
Artists who officially release their works to the public domain's will be remembered at higher rates than commercial artists who "protect" their works.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Go on. Just do it!
The damned PTO won't even look at your patent application for 3-4 years, and will certainly not approve it for at least 5-7 years.
If you want a 5 year patent term, you have to do away with reviewing patents.
We could go along way to solving the software patent problem, if the PTO could turn these things aorund enough to have short term limits, but they can't.
Copyright isn't granted by approval. So, a 5 year term is workable. 15 w/o review and another 15 if you register is probably a better term period for copyright.
Not a bad idea, just made without an understanding of the system you are trying to revise.
"If these industry groups were so concerned with the future of their artists they shouldn't be calling for 70-year long copyright terms, they should be offering artists a pension."
Royalties are a form of pension. If you work for the government or a major corporation and get sick or too old to work you get support. If you're an artist without rights to your work you get welfare or worse, nothing. Why is the public's rights greater than the artist's rights? The public isn't harmed by being denied free music, movies, novels. You eat just as well and have a roof over your heads but without those rights an artist can be left without a means to live. Most don't get rich off rights they managed to get by. Why is it so critical that works enter public domain so fast if ever? If I'm an investor I leave my family a portfolio of stocks. As an artist my work is a ticking time bomb and eventually everyone benefits but my family. Sorry but I care far more about my family than some one that doesn't want to pay for music, movies or books. No where is there a right to free entertainment. Get a job and pay for what you want. It's a system that works and everyone benefits.
Copyright should at best be related to the death of the performer - like at most 5 years after the death of the performer.
Why all the hostility towards copyright? This isn't about software patents.
What you are proposing is that 5 years after an author dies, anyone can do with his work whatever they please, completely disregarding the author's last wishes or the wishes of his heirs.
Imagine that your mother is a publishing poet. Now imagine she passes away. Now imagine that 5 years later, some low class novelty chain publishes your mother's poetry on toilet paper to commemorate the 5th anniversary of her death. Who can stop them? It's public domain after all.
Imagine some white power magazine wants to use one of your mother's poems. They won't need your permission, because after all, it's public domain now. Imagine some advertising agency wants to use your mother's poem to advertise something and make lots of money. They don't even need to ask your permission.
I seriously don't see how 'software patents are bad' (which is supported by some practical and philosophical arguments) has morphed into 'all copyright is bad'. I haven't heard a single rational argument in favor of the latter.
Patents are a disaster. Economist David Levine has a catalog of devastating evidence and arguments. David Heller writes that "Almost half of patents litigated to judgment are invalidated; of those found valid, half are found not to be infringed." Just think of the costs of that for a moment. Most inventions are small and incremental, not original and earth-shattering. And if you're the little guy, forget about it: if RIM couldn't fight off bogus patent threats, what hope do little guys have?
But the real scandal is the drug industry.
Right now we have drug companies that:
This is what they do with the profits from patents. These guys are the big tobacco of the 21st century. Please tell me why paying monopoly rents for drugs from a corrupt industry that's not particularly interested in saving lives is better than at-cost drugs researched with public funding.
But it's a great illustration of who is really being hurt by current copyright law.
Really? Or do the record companies collect more money? There was an attempt to ensure that extra profits went only to artists, but it was defeated. From the Open Rights Group article:
Right. Because every time you distribute a proprietary work you increase its value. It's what Bill Gates said: if you don't buy Windows, he would prefer to see you copy it illegally rather than use something else. Any form of dependency on big media increases the power they have over us.
But let's be realistic here. We can't just walk away from our culture (which is why what they are doing is so utterly wrong.) Avoid their stuff to the extent reasonable. Otherwise, minimize the money you send their way: some of it will certainly be used against you. Use your money and your distribution to encourage the free ecosystem.
Two quibbles. First, not all CC licenses are free. Second, it's perfectly possible for commercial works to use CC licenses.
(Now don't try to tell me they all started singing -ages ago- with nothing on their minds but the burning desire to create something that would feed their yet-to-be families for generations to come...)
Why can't artists behave like normal people?
I.e.: work, earn and pay/save for pensions?
Why does the copyright thing have to pay for their retirement and beyond?
Why does this whole greed thing have to stifle our creative possibilities? See http://thru-you.com/ and imagine that with some golden oldies works off of TV?
How on earth would extending the copyright help those artists? How would it promote culture for the common good?
If they aren't recognized until after they're dead -- they're still dead and penniless.
...would be the other obvious question, though for performers the change is not quite as extreme as 70-95 years "post mortem auctoris".
"Copyright should at best be related to the death of the performer - like at most 5 years after the death of the performer. This to avoid weird situations where someone dies during recording or soon after and also to make sure that funeral costs may be paid."
Originally in the US, CR was good for 14 years; plus another 14 if the artist was still living; for a max of 28 years. Bitch--please!! 28 years is CERTAINLY enough!
Until you're paying royalties to the descendants of Sophocles for Oedipus, you have no moral standing.
And I'm not calling to the people. I'm echoing their screams. Can you not hear them? It's your head they want on a pike.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Keep that thought. It will take time. Who wins out in the end will depend to a large extent on whose ideas are dominant. The ideology of intellectual property has great power right now. We need to fight that - to keep our arguments strong and keep spreading them, so that when the time comes we win the battle of ideas.
If we become complacent - if we assume that all it takes is a generation growing older, then we will lose. What happens if the next generation grows up not knowing the kind of cultural or technological freedom we did? What if they change our minds one by one? What if they buy off the leaders among us? Our opponents - the RIAA, the MPAA, the ESA, the BSA and the rest - their time horizon is measured it quarters. If we play the long game, play it hard and don't give in, we can win.
I'm depending on it. I can't imagine that a democratic society could possibly enforce the kinds of controls that are being proposed and pushed into law.
Copyrighted works can be valuable property whose ownership was meant to be passed on to the children and spouse of the deceased, just a house or other real-estate is passed from owner to family. It's too bad nowadays, that very few hold the copyright on the works they created, instead signing it off to some company for a one-time fee.
Actually its not in the publishers best interest to make the music available in many forms.
The publisher wants to maximize the profit and sadly this is done by selling the music as expensive as they can and mostly sell the music where they get most of the profit. Thats why most music aint sold as DRM-free mp3.
Just saying it like it are.
Listen to yourself. This is hysterical. You don't make a single cogent argument. You don't even respond to my proposal for public funding.
Let's be clear, because your example is insidious. It implies that eliminating patent law would be akin to seizing personal property. If I own a knife, then it is my personal property. So long as I don't break any laws, it is mine to do with as a I choose. Anyone proposing to ban it or take it away from me must have a significant justification.
Patents are nothing like this. They are a policy instrument used by government to achieve certain ends. A government choosing not to make use of them is not a matter of "banning" anything. Patents are only legitimate and useful to the extent that they achieve the objectives they are intended to achieve. You do not have a right to patent laws. This is merely a question of choosing the right tool for the job.
The question, then, is first: do patents do what they're supposed to do, and second: is there a better tool for the job. I referred to economist David Levine. He answers "no" to the first, and provides a convincing array of evidence. As to the second, I have pointed to another tool that works better. Public funding of research is not known for the kind of thorough corruption evidenced in the proprietary pharmaceutical sector. And because it is not dependent on patents, the benefits of drugs are not subject to the huge additional costs of monopoly.
But hey, since you made a ridiculous comparison I'll make one too. With a choice between a knife and a chainsaw to cut vegetables, would you choose the chainsaw even though you kept losing fingers?
It changes a lot for the company still making tons of money selling Elvis. They can continue to do so for another 20 years, while they work on the next extension.
"There's someone in my head but it's not me." - Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon
It's supply and demand, and fairness why copyright holders should make more than "normal" people. Fairness, because any successful creative work is hundreds or thousands of times more valuable to society than the work of normal people. A single good book can make tens to hundreds of millions to the publisher, so can a good song, a good computer program, a good patent etc. Normal jobs, no matter how hard you work, will never generate that kind of revenue. It's not how hard you work, but how valuable your final output is. Which is why a CEO makes more than a hard-working farmer.
Supply and demand also applies because only a few creative works make money, whereas normal jobs are relatively safer. But the price you pay for this security is such jobs are limited to typical income range from $30,000 to $150,000/year. Creative works are hit-and-miss -- you either mostly very little or sometimes millions. If a musician creates 50 songs, an author writes 10 books, there is a very good chance only 1% to 10% will make decent money.
If you have good creative ability, and a stomach for risk, go make gobs of money, nobody's stopping you. If not, stop pulling down exceptional people to mediocrity.
The problem I have is not so much the copyright extension - it's the ex post facto fashion that it's being done. Changes to copyright law should not change the terms of existing copyrights.
Copyrights were originally an arrangement to promote public works by letting the creators have a monoply of copy rights on their works for a period of time (20 years originally) before the works become public domain.
It's a good idea, because by ensuring that the creators can profit from their works, society is enrichened with more works in the public domain (after the copyrights expire)
Can you imagine a deal where you pay for a number of years before you own your car, but then the car company changes the deal just before your term is up so you have to pay for another 5 years before you get your car?
Changing terms for EXISTING copyrights is, in effect, a similar situation - the artist knew the deal going in, there is already a clear 'no ex post facto law' ban in the constitution, and by never changing the term of existing copyrights, you limit the incentive to extend them until the heat-death of the universe!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
The IPI and other industry groups like to talk about the billions lost to piracy on the internet. But what they've done here dwarfs that. When you copy a song in violation of copyright you "steal" it once from one person or one company for a few years or however long goes by until you delete it or lose the disk its saved on.
But what has happened here is that the industry groups have stolen every single song written or recorded in the last 70 years from every single citizen of the EU for a duration of at least 20 whole years. The scale of their theft is many orders of magnitude greater than the worst case scenario for "internet piracy."
As far as I'm concerned, any rights owner that supports or benefits from any copyright term extension legislation has zero standing to complain about piracy. They broke the social contract that was in place when they created the music. Just because they have co-opted our so-called representatives to put a rubber-stamp of legality on their contract violation doesn't give them the moral high-ground in the conflict. They want new terms? Well, the only terms they deserve are a termination of their copyrights, termination with extreme prejudice.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Yes, _her_ publishers wouldn't want that. The other publishing houses, which currently can't publish them would probably be quite happy.
Music created by one generation is enjoyed by that generation. '50's rock and roll is mostly enjoyed by teen agers living in the '50's. Classical music from 1600 was most enjoyed by people living then. Current musical taste is enjoyed most by people living in that time. Composers of music have a good idea of what musical tastes people have, and provide them with music they will enjoy. Its absolutely stupid to copyright music more than 20 years (1 generation). Other than enjoyment, music has little value. When I work, I get paid for a moment in time. Why is it that composers get paid for a lifetime + 20 years for a moments work? Does a bridge engineer get paid 70 years because the bridge lasted that long? How about buildings? To which Egyptian (or slave) does the current government of Egypt owe for the pyramids? They are still around! I thought the EU was smarter than this! Dumb and Dumber, USA and EU! Pathetic milquetoasts to the stupid brainless, no-business-plan recording industry. Why don't they just die already?
I wonder if this copyright extension has to do with the fact that the popular fifties music (rock'n'roll, for example) was starting to get out of the 50 year copyright zone.
Pensions keep paying no matter how many people keep using your works, royalities can hit near-zero quickly once people stop caring (provided they ever cared).
Besides, it's death + X years, after your death YOU aren't going to receive royalties anyway no matter who owns the rights.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Can we?
Please please please!
Do we really need our weekly fix of Corporate Entertainment (TM)?
A pharmaceutical company that pours billions of dollars into research and tials to finally develop a drug that takes away disease gets a 20 year patent.
An automaker that develops new type of breaks that saves peoples lives gets a 20 year patent.
Someone who goes "la la la" into a microphone gets 70 year copyright.
Yes, I know that patents and copyright aren't exactly the same but still. The proportions are WAY off here.
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
No. Copyright has served its term. These laws are going to be passed in every country that matters ,in one way or another, just like all those other laws we didn't like were passed. Listening to music from the mass media organisations is becoming immoral. What are we supporting by enjoying their music? We are supporting the subservience of art to money. Nothing more, nothing less. Black Sabbath is my favorite band. I first heard them after sneaking into my brothers bedroom and listening to his records. I thinK (due to burglary and media changes) I have bought the entire catalog of Black Sabbath several times. Well, fuck them. There is only one way to really say this. ..
cd Music/
mv Jamendo ~
cd
rm -rf Music/*
mv Jamendo/ Music/
Join Jamendo folks. Search, find, advertise, and promote the musicians on there. Any musician from the labels is either clueless or trying to fuck you over. That the bands that I grew up with, supported, lived with, showed me beauty, tears and life can support this situation guts me. Spineless little fucks they have become. Delete your music folks, delete your movies. If you see or hear something you like from them then email them asking for their album/movie/whatever under creative commons. Our failure to do this with lead to the death of our culture and the emotional death of ourselves. Subsumed in the search for more and more money.
If the RIAA and it's members want my remorse. It can turn it's body to a corpse.
I reserve the write to mangle english.
Um... after 50 years, what are the odds the artist will still be alive? only half of us make it to 70 something (too lazy to look up the lifespan rates, their different for different demographics anyway), and musicians aren't exactly known for long lifespans.
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
That would SO never pass in the US.
True. But still: who gives a fuck after 50 years ?!?!? If greedy company X doesn't want to publish my stuff - what will it help me if they send me my demo tape from 1959 back ?
To error is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the OS.
wouldn't get that juicy copyright either.
So in return for committing a jail-worthy (even to the CEO) criminal act, they get to print an out-of-copyright work in competition with the thirty other publishing houses, none of which have the sword of damoclese of a criminal act over their head. And one of which loses the monopoly rights.
Yeah, that makes a LOT of economic sense...
This is just another example of laws being bought by rich corporations.
Is it any wonder that a significant proportion of the population no longer respect copyright law.
This is just blatant corruption, with government clearly acting against the wishes of the majority.
* Why is it that an engineer or scientist will only be granted a 20 year protection of his or her idea after spending piles of money and maybe 5 to 10 years working on an idea, while a guy with a guitar gets a monopoly for life?
* If I buy an original potatoe at a store and I reproduce it and share copies with my friends, why isn't that called theft? Making that initial potatoe available can potentially cost the store thousands in lost potatoe sales.
(... sampled from the swedish debate)
She made the willows dance
The problem is that these organizations are trying to excuse everything with income loss cause of the internet, in a way there asking for compensations in a different way.
Im as "oh, they big companies are screwing the consumer" as anyone else, but thats hardly Rick-rolling in million dollar notes there! http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/rickroll_songwriter_only_made_16_youtube
---
The real problem is that copyright is not an election issue. While most of slashdot readers are convinced that extension of copyright is evil, none are going to make it a big enough issue to force governments to back down.
Personally, I would prefer copyright was similar to patent rights. 17..20 years should be sufficient time for the Autists to be fully compensated.
Im 21, and although I often dont like a random song on the radio now, I do think there are many "future classics" to be dug up. If you look at the top songs of this decade, the 2000's, there are some massive hits. The same as there were the decade before, and the decade before, and the 50 years before that.
When you bring up artists I've never heard of, and make out that all the artists from 1980 on are shit, well, what about the "thousands" of other groups from the 1950's? It wasnt just Elvis you know!
I work at a business where older people are the majority of customers, we have to have one of those "old bugger FM" stations on, taglines such as "coast, timeless music", and they supposedly have people from the other side of the world (Im a New Zealander) email in saying they listen in on the internet stream, because in the entire rest of the world theres not a radio station that plays 9 of Elvis' 10 mainstream hits a day, then The Beetles, oh no! You cant buy the music yourself either, hell no! Because the older people (50+) that it targets dont seem to know how to steal music on those computer things, they are lead to believe the only way to listen to music is from this one radio station.
To think you're generation is somehow special, and the best, while the rest are just dreck, thats a pretty sad way of life!
I'm sure I'll listen to Kanye West etc in 10 years time, and probably in another 20. I guess the use of Auto Tune and current musical trends will be laughed about , as is synthesized music from the 1980's, but then think about all the CLASSIC songs from the 1980's, its fun to put on GTA Vice City and drive around to the old hits. I'm still a huge Michael Jackson fan, and I'll be listening to Thriller, biggest album EVER in the entire world, screw The Eagles, biggest in America, when Thriller is 50 years old, its 25 years old now.
How about we wait until music is actually quite old before we judge whether or not it will stand the test of time?
---
It changes a lot for the company still making tons of money selling Elvis
No, it changes nothing. No-one is forcing you to buy Elvis' music, nor are you being prevented from listening to music that you have already bought. It will not change the cost of anything that you are thinking of buying. The cost of producing the music hasn't increased, simply the time for which the record company can claim sole control over who performs it. And, although I do not support this law, nothing is making me pay any more in the future than I do now. I don't have to listen to the music. Music and other art is not a daily essential for life. But those that want to make a profit from the use of the music score (i.e. musicians and others) or who want to earn money from public performances of the records (e.g. radio stations, DJs) have a right to complain. But I haven't heard them complaining with anything like the vigour that would be required to have prevented this law from being passed.
I think that this law sucks - but it will not have the slightest effect upon my life. If the radio stations go bust, or musicians stop performing music that they haven't written themselves, then it will be those that market the music who, ultimately, will lose out. Their royalty stream will dry up.
Those musicians that feel strongly that their music should be left for the common good can always release it under some other licence. There is no law saying that you have to enforce the copyright that you might have on your work. As long as you don't sign it away to the record company this will not enable them to earn any more money from it than they do today. If the big names simply give the right to public performances to the public then no law has been broken and everyone is happy. Those that believe that they have a right to an income in near perpetuity for their labour will have to get used to the fact that they are deluding themselves. I am not being forced to contribute to their pension scheme.
Have a look at soylentnews.org for a different view
Not only dead, but unless they decide to re-release that music (a big IF), it will end up completely forgotten and lost before the copyright expires.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
What right does an artist have to 70 years of income from a single piece of work? What makes an artist so much more special than a doctor or even a supermarket shelf stacker?
If a doctor save's someone's life, is he entitled to royalties from that person for as long as they remain alive?
As you pointed out, most artists don't get rich, but a small percentage of them take the piss and make billions for doing relatively little work. The difference has nothing to do with how hard someone works, or even how good their music is, it's purely down to brand recognition and media hype.
Why should someone who performs his work every week in a bar earn less than someone who hasn't performed or produced anything in years?
The system is unfairly stacked to benefit a select few at the expense of everyone else, and these people have pulled the wool over the eyes of the masses by convincing them they somehow have some inherent right to continue ripping everyone off.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Bear in mind as well that most contract with artists were sign when 50 years was the law so the contract will state they get royalties for 50 years. The extra 20 years royalties is going straight to the label in most cases and the artist won't see a penny.
I dont read
A dollar from each person who wanted to hear the song. Sounds more than reasonable ^.^
It is what it is.
At that rate, the theoretical public good would be better served by putting [Britney's songs] into the public domain and letting people remix them freely.
Actually, I think the public is served very well by restricting the use of Britney's songs...
Another reason to join them. Copyright covered industry is the best, it is like rolling of a snowball. You rake ever more as you age.
It is the worst or the best industry, it depends on the point of view.
If the artist is even still alive 50 years later.. And assuming anyone still remembers them or cares, and assuming any copies of it still exist on readable media.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Making old music available detracts from being able to sell newer more profitable music... It's in their interest to bury old music so it gets forgotten, in 70 years time noone will remember it and few copies will still exist so even tho it's copyright has expired it will be completely useless and won't compete with whatever new profitable music they're selling at the time.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
The reason the music industry is afraid of the internet is because they have a hard time controlling it. There scheme is all based on controlling the media channels and thus ultimately what you buy. Why do you think they play the same song five times a day even if there is enough music around to play continuously a different song for five centuries. Yes you can listen to every single cd in a record store, but no-one is going to. People only listen and eventually buy what they somehow associate to. The record company know this, brainwashing you with literally everything they own.
They are very afraid of the possibility people would start as a group finding out, search for them selves what they like, dislike in music. They would not have any control, unable to make sure you choose between music they own. This is the real reason behind the "war against 'piracy'"
Funeral costs?
I understand your motivation, but that's not what copyright is for. If somebody works for a company, would you argue that they should continue to get paid for 5 years after their death despite being, well, dead? Of course not - it's a ridiculous idea. And if their family said "but we need the money to pay for the funeral!", you'd say tough luck, but the employer shouldn't continue to pay without getting anything in return just because the family has some unanticipated expenses now.
Copyright is just like that, and once you start extending it beyond someone's death, you've opened the door for all the shit we're currently seeing. If it's justified to extend it five years beyond someone's death, why not 10? Why not 20? Why not 50? Why not 100?
Seriously, why?
I actually had the exact same immediate response.
Keith Richards will keep playing? Holy mother ... please make it stop. This is against nature and all that's good and true.
But life + 70 is de facto unlimited. Why? Because not only can the artist himself enjoy the profits for his or her entire life, but every single person that the artist knew in his life can continue to enjoy the copyright for pretty much their entire lives. Therefore, from the artist's point of view, life + 70 = infinity.
Perhaps one of the most interesting and colorful words in the English language today is the word "fuck." It is the one magical word which, just by its sound, can describe pain, pleasure, love and hate. In language, "fuck" falls into many grammatical categories.
It can be used as a verb, both transitive (John fucked Mary) and intransitive (Mary was fucked by John). It can be an action verb (John really gives a fuck), a passive verb (Mary really doesn't give a fuck), an adverb (Mary is fucking interested in John), or as a noun (Mary is a terrific fuck). It can also be used as an adjective (Mary is fucking beautiful) or an interjection (Fuck! I'm late for my date with Mary). It can even be used as a conjunction (Mary is easy, fuck she's also stupid).
As you can see, there are very few words with the overall versatility of the word "fuck". Aside from its sexual connotations, this incredible word can be used to describe many situations:
1. Greetings "How the fuck are ya?"
2. Fraud "I got fucked by the car dealer."
3. Resignation "Oh, fuck it!"
4. Trouble "I guess I'm fucked now."
5. Aggression "FUCK YOU!"
6. Disgust "Fuck me."
7. Confusion "What the fuck.......?"
8. Difficulty "I don't understand this fucking business!"
9. Despair "Fucked again..."
10. Pleasure "I fucking couldn't be happier."
11. Displeasure "What the fuck is going on here?"
12. Lost "Where the fuck are we."
13. Disbelief "UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE!"
14. Retaliation "Up your fucking ass!"
15. Denial "I didn't fucking do it."
16. Perplexity "I know fuck all about it."
17. Apathy "Who really gives a fuck, anyhow?"
18. Greetings "How the fuck are ya?"
19. Suspicion "Who the fuck are you?"
20. Panic "Let's get the fuck out of here."
21. Directions "Fuck off."
22. Disbelief "How the fuck did you do that?"
It can be used in an anatomical description- "He's a fucking asshole."
It can be used to tell time- "It's five fucking thirty."
It can be used in business- "How did I wind up with this fucking job?"
It can be maternal- "Motherfucker."
It can be political- "Fuck D an Quayle!"
It has also been used by many notable people throughout history: "What the fuck was that?" Mayor of Hiroshima
" Where did all these fucking Indians come from?" General Custer
"Where the fuck is all this water coming from?" Captain of the Titanic
"Thats not a real fucking gun." John Lennon
"Who's gonna fucking find out?" Richard Nixon
"Heads are going to fucking roll." Anne Boleyn
"Let the fucking woman drive." Commander of Space Shuttle "Challenger"
"What fucking map?" Mark Thatcher
"Any fucking idiot could understand that." Albert Einstein
"It does so fucking look like her!" Picasso
"How the fuck did you work that out?" Pythagoras
"You want what on the fucking ceiling?" Michaelangelo
"Fuck a duck." Walt Disney
"Why?- Because its fucking there!" Edmund Hilary
"I don't suppose its gonna fucking rain?" Joan of Arc
"Scattered fucking showers my ass." Noah
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Living Doll. I was looking forward to doing some work with that track.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Do they really think that even in 50 years people will buy their crappy DVD? How many films do they think people will still buy after this time? Even for recent film people are stopping to buy DVD. I don't know for you but I stopped to buy them. I rent them but I don't have space to loose for stuff I won't use anymore. I don't understand this people on movies industries, movies theater are so expensive, that it's becoming a strugling for a family to go there and now they expected to have a rent for life. Music and Movies industries is the obly industrie like this. Do you know a rich scientist (by is work without create a compagny) and do they have any royalties for their work after 70 years? Do you think that Einstein and his family earned any cents for all the work which has been done with the use of his theory but his own salary and prize?
"What right does an artist have to 70 years of income from a single piece of work? What makes an artist so much more special"
Sadly this applies throughout history to how a select few who gain great wealth and power at the expense of the masses. I would like to say that all that changes is their method of attaining wealth, but IP laws like copyrights are very reminiscent to the principle of taxes. (This also applies to other IP laws like patents). Taxes have been used by the people in power throughout history to keep gaining more money and ever more power. Once someone gets into a position of power they change the laws so they can keep gaining income. Sadly its a feedback loop, as power makes money and money gives power. Power gives the ability to influence laws. Which in turn allows more money to be earned. Its totally a feedback loop.
..at least in Sweden copyright is already an election issue, at least with regards to the european parliament election coming up. Yesterday the swedish Pirate party passed the 40k member limit, soon they will be the third largest party in Sweden(~43k). When it comes down to the national election though, I'm afraid you are correct.
With the conviction of The Pirate Bay administrators having immediately abolished all filesharing, the EU has approved an extension of sound copyright to seventy years past the point of theoretical death, and death to seventy years past actual death.
The media industry sponsored move is intended to properly suppress the very notion of the production of unapproved works of art. The major record companies' value proposition has changed from being the only people you can get music from to being the only people who will stop you getting music. "We own all the back catalogs we've been buying up," said Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfmann, the luckiest sperm in the whole USA, "and YOU CAN'T HAVE THEM! And we'll sue your grandmother's ass if you try going around us!"
Without an extension of copyright, the dead might never record again. "If I'd known in 1958, when the copyright in 'Move It' was due to expire in 2008, that the copyright in 'Move It' would in fact expire in 2008, would I have bothered? I don't bloody think so!" said Sir Cliff Richard (died 1961). "I can rest safe in the knowledge that my mouldering corpse will not feel ripped off by this turn of events, and that my many, many descendants can continue to live off 'Summer Holiday' for the term of their rather unnatural lives. Remember that I am a born-again Christian and non-drinker, so beer and hookers mean and meant nothing to me. Money, however, is next to Godliness."
Feargal Sharkey of UK Music stressed the necessity of the move to his never having to write another song after "Teenage Kicks." "I urge you to picture a world in which Girls Aloud and Jason Donovan have no motivation to record."
The government's Cowell Report recommended that copyright should be reduced to one year, software patents made a hanging offence, Mickey Mouse declared an unperson and musicians told to stop whining and get a real bloody job like the rest of us. "It's not like there's some sort of national shortage of bad pop records," said Sir Simon, "although a world in which Jive Bunny recordings irretrievably disintegrate into dust before they could possibly enter the public domain does have a certain appeal. Nevertheless, we desperately need to demotivate surplus pop star wannabes. I urge you to picture a world in which Girls Aloud and Jason Donovan have no motivation to record."
Richard Dawkins spoke in favour of the perpetual unavailability of music, as per his new book The Art Delusion. "'Music' appears to be an entirely subjective phenomenon with little or no objective measurements possible — much like any other brand of snake oil or balderdash. Music seems to be a sort of virus on human consciousness, parasitically sapping the collective intelligence of the human race." He defended his own attendance at his local church's Christmas carols: "I'm only putting them at their ease so they let their guard down while I work on plans for mass re-education camps for the sufferers of musical appreciation."
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Artist collection agencies, like Sabam gets money from all the artists, dead or alive, which they've got their exclusive contract with.
To my opinion, it's purpose is not to protect the artist, but those who collect afterwards....
I've been writing about this exclusive-licensing-crap limiting our (Belgian) artists at large.
Be sure to check out Sabam, really for the common? & Music industry, wake up call for alternative licensing! for more information...
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Being recognizable by a large group of people is a capital itself. Artists are special because millions of human lemmings declare themselves "fans", pay money for performance/records, and even sacrifice their lives sometimes...
Coding etudes
If you object to this change in the law, then make your thoughts known to your MP, and your MEP. No amount of moaning about it on forums - even Slashdot - will have any effect.
The people who made the change only care about two things: their own view on the matter, and whether or not you will vote for them at the next election. Let them know the latter and get your friends and colleagues to do the same.
If you can't be bothered to do that, then shut up, you're wasting yours, and everyone else's time.
Try "powerful people have always had more political influence than people without power." Not too likely to change, either, until humans stop having human nature,
But industry organizations are also fundamentally different than real people. Real people care more about the local hospital that might be closed down because it affects them directly, while the industry cares about the health care reform bill that'll let them charge 300 million people a little more. Consumer organizations don't have nearly the same strength because people constantly abandon it for other short-time and personal benefits.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
If a product is still making millions then who should be earning money?
a) The guy who originally recorded it
or
b) A bunch of media machines who sit around waiting to pounce on "old" works and exploit them to hell and back (eg. TV-advertised compilations) without paying guy (a) a penny? How about radio stations with paid advertising? Should they be able to use it for free?
To me at least, (b) is the devil. At the moment, copyright law is the only thing stopping (b) from happening.
You could argue that not-for-profit home copying should be allowed after a certain number of years, but no copyright at all? No thanks.
No sig today...
In Spain copyright last till 70 years after the author death.
The longer they make the terms for copyright protections the less relevant they become. Why don't they just make them last until the end of time and be done with it, and make the protections retroactive until the beginning of time while they're at it.
You forgot c). Which is of course, nobody makes money off of it. Or more rightly, anybody can sell copies of it for whichever price they feel covers their distribution and production costs, and people get the product for next to nothing. Originally copyright was 17 years. I personally believe that is quite long enough for the artist to make their money. After that, it should go into the public domain. The artist should have to produce some new works.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Seriously, if copyright were tied to death + only a short time, JK Rowling would be toast. All the publishing houses would be hiring professional hitmen. And striking it big with the Great American Novel would pretty much be your death knell.
On the other hand, that sound like a good setting for some kind of post-apocalyptic copyright thriller.
I read that and all I heard was "blah blah blah we need to hire hitmen against artists for the sake of our children."
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
are you sure?
I would imagine that the copyright is handed over to the media company also for your stated 50 years - and will fall back to the creator after the agreed period of time.
They've "stolen" 20 more years of works from the public domain.
"Stealing" the appropriate term to use, according to the copyright maximalists.
Seriously, if copyright were tied to death + only a short time, JK Rowling would be toast.
Getting killed soon after publishing anything noteworthy may be a very good incentive to become a professional writer... when you're aspiring to join a Dead Writers' Guild.
Killing the goose that laid golden eggs, are we?
Usage: km/h for speed (kilometers per hour); kph for very slow impulses (kilopond hours).
Should run out 5 years before the artist dies.
Exception Duck - may or may not contain chicken.
the problem started back when corporations got status as citizens, greatly extending their rights and privileges.
end result is a "being" that cant really die, and so can hoard properties of all kinds.
sure, it can go bankrupt, but that will not happen if the hoarding is played smart.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Hell of a poor rationale for locking up our culture.
This change of law increases the value of something already produced. I guess the copyright cartels are arguing that they are creating wealth, when really they're printing money. Further to that, the cost to society is not even considered.
This is yet another example of uncreative trolls, completely estranged from the artistic process, lining their pockets with silver.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
plain and simple and eventually when the copyrights get to forever clauses and the economy is controlled by a few and those few are having ALL the WEALTH and we all poor people get poorer and poorer there will be a world war, a revolution that will see the very fabric of society changed forever, and watch as blackwater style armies appear to get hired buy these types more and more.
The copyright term discussed in FTA is for performances/recordings, was 50 years, period, and will now be 70 years, period, death of performer has nothing to do with it. Copyright for songwriter/composer was, and still is life+70, and hasn't changed.
In general, this benefits the average performer by a few euros a year, but cumulatively adds up to a much larger amount to the companies with large copyright holdings.
Feel free to mod the parent down, postings that are flat out wrong because the poster clearly did not RTFA shouldn't be Insightful/5.
What is the purpose of copyright protection? Which of these is our intent?
a) To provide the original author with rights for 25, 50, 100 years?
b) To provide the original author with rights for life, provided the copyright is kept alive?
c) To provide the original author's family with rights for 20 years longer than the death of their relative?
d) To provide the copyright "owner" individual/corporation with rights for 25, 50, 100 years from initial publication?
e) To allow the copyright "owner" with enough time to make money off the work?
f) To allow others to take an old work and revive it into something new?
I'd vote for b and f if asked. Copyright and patents shouldn't be "forever." The work needs to be released to the public domain after a reasonable period of time where the owner can work to make money. If the owner doesn't get it to pay, then someone else who can should have the opportunity.
As an example, Mickey Mouse began in 1928. Walt Disney died in 1966, so for the last 43 years, my plan would have allowed Mickey Mouse to be public domain, if it weren't also trademarked.
You want a good argument for term lengths of copyright? Read McCauley on Copyright. It's a pair of speeches given by Thomas McCauley in the British Parliament in 1841 and 1842. To put it bluntly, McCauley has said all there is to be said on copyright, and done it much more eloquently than you or I could.
Pay attention to the second speech, where he argues for a copyright term of 42 years or until death, whichever is longer.
Cynical Idealist
You seem to be under the impression that (a) is what is happening now. A lot of people that are unhappy with current copyright laws might be a little less unhappy if the original artist(s) was/were where the money went. Unfortunately, most of the royalties don't go to the artist, they go to the record company executives. If the purpose was to pay the artist, what would be the point of having the copyright last for 50 years after the artist dies?
Of course, there's the argument about whether there are any real artists in the recording industry these days, but that's a matter of opinion.
Actually, the artist won't see a penny even for the first 50 years - he/she will be dead anyway.
My reading of this is that it delays music from turning copyright-free only where the composer dies more than 20 years prior to the performer's demise. Otherwise, it just adds performers to the existing list of people who enjoy a copyright.
Other elements noted also seem to be quite significantly shifting the balance of rights towards actual performers and from the corporates; no changes to the public.
Am I misinterpreting the current and proposed legislation?
(personally I think copyright should hold for the same duration as patents, since the principle objective is the same, but that's beside the point I'm making.)
Finally, there is some incentive for me to publish my music in the EU. I had held out before but now that I know my works will be protected for 70 years it's worth my while to innovate.
~Warning!~ The above is encrypted using rot676!
You say that businesses like big pharma "play all these dirty games, because if they don't, their competitor will eat their lunch." Sure. This is unsurprising and irrelevant to public policy. All that matters is whether these "dirty games" are in the public interest - specifically, do the benefits of the patent system exceed the harm inflicted by the dirty games. Your insistence on taking a moralistic stance ("ethical" vs "unethical", "theft" of inventions) obscures this basic question. Patents are a tool. The question we need to answer is not whether the businesses that use them are good or bad (though I admit I slammed big pharma) - it is whether the tool is effective. For pharmaceuticals, I have argued that the answer is "No."
You keep avoiding this question. Instead you mix in moralistic claims. You tell a nice myth about how before patents even existed, "long ago, inventors were strongly opposed to leeches copy-catting their inventions and making a buck stealing their ideas." By that logic, the historical absence of patent laws was a moral wrong. Never mind the history of patents as favored monopolies, or that the idea of "intellectual property" is historically recent. The fact is, inventors were not taken robbed: they knew the risks and benefits, and made their choices accordingly.
When I explain why inventors have no right to the patent system, you respond that "several patents earn their owners millions, if not billions . . . eliminating patent law will be far worse than seizing personal real-estate property for them." Just a moment. Did we create patent law for their benefit, or for the benefit of society? If we started with no patent system, then instituted one, there would also be people who stood to loose millions. Was it therefore wrong to create the system?
Drop the moralizing, or own up to an extraordinary claim that patents are a moral right. I'm sure patents have led to useful inventions. That's meaningless when the costs are not considered. You need to address the real issue of whether patents provide a net benefit. I have outlined the pervasive damage they have inflicted when it comes to pharmaceuticals. I have pointed to evidence (Levine) that the problem is much wider. You have declined to take the matter seriously, caricaturing abuse as "0.0001%" of the total. That is a ridiculous number - one that would not be true even of the most effective policy instruments. Perhaps I am wrong (really). Perhaps you have better evidence. Perhaps there are specific fields where the net benefit is clear. Or maybe abstract theory and a story of "long ago" are good enough for you.
Better check with Dan Quayle to see if he has the rights to Potatoe.
Meanwhile, I feel like there's a Judo move being set up here.
For a little bit of early pain, we're establishing the groundwork for copyright enforcement.
Maybe not this administration, but eventually someone with a populist streak *with nothing to lose* - say a President in his last year in office, could then do a tombstone piledriver on Hollywood Accounting using the fiscal reform laws.
I'm thinking that Mr. Scientist just has to add some Performance Coating and get BOTH a patent AND a copyright on his ideas. "Ooh, it's a CD with Extended Data features! In a story about a scientist who seeks to get past the limits of silicon on a computer chip, he desperately tries higher grade lithography, before changing paradigms, and turning to the new photo-sensitive materials in that other slashdot post 2 stories away on the front page."
Get a drama class to film things, write up a script and novel version, get a soundtrack, post it as a webisode and a Community-TV special, and Voila, Copyright lock.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Instead of trying to wring money out of an amoral system.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Indeed. Many of us will be dead before the works our parents enjoyed during our conception enter the public domain.
Fixed that for you.
Where's the Kaboom?
There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
And this clearly shows why.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I'd like to welcome our old overlords who are now extending their terms of overlording dominion... no, fuck that, I'm voting for my MEPs who didn't vote to allow this!
I believe the correct response is "God damn you all to helllllll!!!!"
Yes. What brain-dead prick dreamed up that idea anyway? I really want to know. What were the political origins of treating corporations as people?
There are elections for the EU parliament soon.
This might be a good time to vote for the Pirate Party, if you've got one in your country.
Does anyone know how to register if you're a spaniard living abroad?
GPG 0x1B479C78
It isn't to give the creator control over their work.
i think you will find the info in here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation
but from what i recall, it was a judge that came to that conclusion...
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Ah yes, the fan. Short for fanatic, right?
Anyone else get the mental image of a charismatic cult/religious leader?
Or for that matter the Rockerboy "class" found in the Cyberpunk 2020 roleplaying game?
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Thank you for clarifying. You believe that patents are a natural right. Not a legal right created by society to achieve a particular effect, but a natural right deriving from some moral axiom. Whether or not patents actually achieve what they're supposed to is secondary.
This is an extraordinary claim. It is quite contrary to the purpose of the law, and raises a number of significant ethical questions (e.g. if patent rights are natural rights, what is the justification for term limits?) Moral rights have been linked to copyright (though not in the U.S., where the constitution leaves no room for them). Not to patents. It appears to me you have bought into an ideology that confuses your self-interest with a moral right (while possibly mixing up two very different kinds of law - namely, patent and copyright). But there's no arguing with belief and self-interest. It's enough to clarify what your argument is really about.
As for making me making millions from someone else's patents, I can't even imagine a situation in which that might happen. I want quite different things from life. My self-interest is only involved here as a member of a free and healthy democratic society. One in which the system for producing life-saving drugs is more efficient and less corrupt, for example.
No, you're wrong; Copyright is an election issue. What this demonstrates is that the constituency for whom this is an election issue (i.e. the recording industry) has more clout than the constituency for whom it isn't (i.e. the general public). Dollars/pounds/euros are more important than votes and voters.
In Italy copyright is death+70 years, so this rule (performance+50/70) will actually shorten the copyright in most cases.
just because the law is fucked up?
Nobody forces me to listen to Beyonce and her ilk, and indeed I don't. But why should I bow to the whim of some exec somewhere as to under what conditions I'm allowed to listen to, say, Elvis?
If anyone deserves to be public domain, the King certainly does;)
The real problem is that copyright is not an election issue. While most of slashdot readers are convinced that extension of copyright is evil, none are going to make it a big enough issue to force governments to back down.
There is no way it can be as none of the big parties are offering copyright change promises (I'm guessing) in your area.
This is one of the ways in which representative democracy is broken. We could have system of granular voting, I think one of the Scandi-wegian countries has such a system where if a certain small percentage of the population sign a petition then an issue can be brought to a general vote. With a working electronic voting system this would be more tenable.
Currently in the UK I think we can choose if market chosen big business gets all our money (conservative) or if government chosen big business gets all our money (labour).
I'd like to see one minor amendment added (via international convention would be good).
Any rights revert to the performer personally (not a corporation even if it is wholly owned by the performer - i.e. is a tax dodge) after, say, 10 years from being made available to the public. I'd let this harmonise with patent terms at, lets say, 15 years. And make this retroactive.
You might then allow the performer, or next of kin, the right to exploit the work for a further 5 years in exchange for a fee of 50% of the proceeds from that work in the previous year OR release the work into the PD.
Now there'll be no big money supporting extension of rights for years and years as they want things in the PD just as much as the public do (perhaps more) so they can exploit those creative works themselves.
I will respect no law that doesn't make beer stronger, children smile or keep old people warm at night. I encourage you to do the same.
The music industry is a dying parasite world wide. Musicians have a need to make money on their own. The music industry prevents this. Copyright only makes money for the industry. Ignore copyright and put the music industry down like a sick dog. Let music flourish and let musicians from all walks of life be able to make money for performance. Free the music. Remember there is no authority over you that you don't authorize. Freedom everywhere is worth fighting oppressors for. There are far fewer of them than us. This could also apply to any government anywhere, mishandling its power. First we take back the music. Then we take back the rest of the world from the few, the evil, the power hungry and the dictators like the Communists, the Socialists , the Theocracies and Democrats.
Want the world to change into a nicer place, fit to prosper in for everyone? Get off your ass and revolt! The many against the few.
Just a tip from yer ol uncle fly.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
The "industry" is also made up of real people. Ignore that fact at the peril of your own irrelevance.
That's a distribution issue. Your publisher is going to be the guy calling up the distributor, not packaging the MP3s.
Trust me, it's nuts for a publisher to just sit on your work, unless he's just that busy with his other clients, or your work is crap. And it's a musician's job to find a publisher they trust in the first place. Often it's a life-long relationship.
Slashdot loves doomsday scenarios but the music business is tough enough without everything hinging on a technicality. In real life your publisher isn't the guy trying to screw you, it's the collections agencies like ASCAP & BMI, also the labels when they are lowballing you on a contract.
Your publisher has a strong interest in seeing you succeed and the situation that Hawk-eye posted, while technically valid, just doesn't happen, since your publisher is essentially working on a commission. There is no benefit to them for actively sabotaging you.