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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.
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.
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 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
Who will know who Britney Spears was some 20 years from now? I suspect that most people aren't even aware that it was her music that was played.
She is known for other things than music and when her possible sex appeal has diminished she will (luckily?) be forgotten.
There are way too many teenage band/performers around that are disappearing quickly in history.
And how many remember "Carl Anderson and Gloria Loring" who made place 13 at the top list of 1986? Or "Patti Labelle and Michael McDonald" that made number 4? I had to look it up.
Someone more known is Gloria Estefan, but nothing of importance has been heard from her in a lot of years either.
Very few has the potential of Madonna to really make a statement and tell people to F off when necessary.
Then we have those real weird guys Michael Jackson and Prince (a.k.a. The Symbol and whatever) that may have made popular music once, but now are just living on old accomplishments. And they are mostly known today by their statements and/or their looks.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
"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."
It probably won't unfold that way. The works will fall out of fashion--all the quicker because fewer people will make derived works due to cost--and this will cause them to be forgotten entirely. In the future, even if a song has been entirely forgotten and no one even knows who to contact for the copyright to the song it won't be able to be used in, say, a documentary because no one will take the chance of a lawsuit when a copyright holder finally steps forward. And this is how culture dies. Locked away in a lawyers file cabinet.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
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,
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?
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
* 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
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.
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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