Slashdot Mirror
EU Extends Music Copyright to 70 Years
MrSteveSD writes "The copyright on sound recordings by the Beatles, Rolling Stones and other famous bands was due to expire in the next few years. However, the EU Council has now scuttled any such hopes. The copyright term has been extended from 50 to 70 years with aging rockers expressing their delight."
Keep copyright where it belongs: a regulation on businesses. It makes no difference what the term is if they leave home users alone.
Palm trees and 8
Yes, we must redouble our efforts to incentivise John Lennon to produce more new music.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Why not just extend it to years and be done with it?
Just get a job like the rest of us
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Council
It does this without any formal powers, only the influence it has being composed of national leaders.
Its kind of like the CFR or any number of other groups ... they do run the place, but not directly officially.
Its not their job to actually rewrite the laws to be 70 years or a million years, but it is somewhat likely that what they say should be done, will be done.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
He evidentially has run out of money. Should we be sad or disgusted at him? I vote for disgusted.
I am ok with extending the copyright time frame. However if the holder dies so should the copyright.
70 years seems a good frame.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Keep that old crap locked up and away from anybody for a long, long time. I've heard it all way too many times. I'd rather have some new indie stuff to listen to. And this extension to the copyright term will hopefully do exactly that.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
Should be able to continue to earn? There's nothing stopping THEM from continuing to sell their albums and songs after copyright expiration.
The change applies to the copyright on studio recordings, which is often owned by record labels, rather than the right to the composition, which is owned by the songwriters.
Can't say I'm a bit surprised. I would hate for record labels to face an income gap toward the end of their lives.
Reply to That ||
But, why an extension to 70 years? Fifty is plenty of time for an artist to reap the rewards of their talents. Plus, I don't think the Stones and Beatles even own the rights to their music from the 60s. Weren't both groups screwed out of their earlier song rights by their managers?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
In this discussion of copyright it's actually appropriate to call it theft.
This music is being (preemptively) removed from the public domain; it's being stolen from the people.
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
I mean, really? What is the effing point of this?
The point of copyright is (or rather, was supposed to be) to grant the creator of a work a time-limited exclusivity on the right to copy that work, so that they could easily publish the work and reap the benefits of that publication (while society also reaps the benefits of the new work being published) without the fear that somebody else might usurp it from them, which might otherwise keep them from publicly releasing their work, and thus depriving society of an artistic creation. If it takes you 70 years to accomplish this, however, or even fifty... heck, arguably anything more than 20, then maybe... just maybe, you're just too effing slow.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Why do I expect to see this headline on Slashdot in 20 years time (say Sept. 12, 2031), with the EXACT same article using the EXACT same Mick Jagger quotes?
After a decade marked by its lack of innovation in music, this is exactly what we don't need.
More like their labels.
MrSteveSD writes
"The copyright on sound recordings by the Beatles, Rolling Stones and other famous bands was due to expire in the next few years. However, the EU Council has now scuttled any such hopes. The copyright term has been extended from 70 to 90 years with life-supported rockers expressing their delight."
(Slashdot 2031)
"Sum Ergo Cogito"
Could someone please explain music copyrights? Is this for mechanical license or for performance?
www.itjerk.com
Good. I was worried about having to take Ringo or Paul in when thy ended up penniless on the street. Being a fan, I couldn't let that happen to them, but we don't really have a lot os space for permanent house guests.
There is no moral or philosophically defensible position that says someone needs to own a song or a movie for 70 years. The only explanation is greed overstepping all sense of proportion and reason. Disgusting. It just moves me with great anger to make sure I will do my best to hurt the bottom line of those who think dollar signs are more important than the common property of mankind.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's worth noting that the Swedish Pirate Party's MEP tried to get this issue back to the parliament months ago for a new vote (which should be allowed by the parliament's rules of procedure, since the old vote was done by the previous parliament before the last election in 2009 and there are provisions that allow a new vote if the council is too slow in adopting a directive from the parliament and there's an election inbetween), but the parliament's directorate stalled for four months, and then decided, less than 10 days ago, that the rules didn't apply in this case after all.
No need to bribe hundreds of parliamentarians when you can just pay off one or two persons in the directorate.
Who else gets paid after they retire? I just read something from Roger Daltry who said in 2007 that musicians don't have pensions. Well I'm self-employed and I don't have a bloody pension either because I can't afford to get one! They want control over their compositions? Fair enough. You have 50 years from whence you composed it. After that, the other musicians of the world can play what you've made. If you're not happy with that, then never listen to classical music ever again. You wouldn't be able to if the music control industry was in place earlier in history. /rant
If this is being done because people are seeing their income drop after 50 years, then I think they deserved the wake up call that everything they've done for the last 50 years is worthless crap, and maybe they should have learned to save some cash for retirement.
Good news for us. I'm sure the Beatles only produced the huge array of music they did because they knew that forty years later their copyrights would be extended like this.
Copyrights are supposed to be a bargain where the artist gets a 50 year exclusive right to distribute their work in exchange for releasing the work into the public domain after that term. This is outright theft by the EU from the public domain and we should be making a huge stink about it. If you live in the European Union your culture has just been stolen. Everyone in the EU needs to inundate your representatives with complaints about this because these copyrights have been stolen from each and every one of you!
... and I'm bloody well not delighted.
Not if you drop a nuke on them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima_Maidens
Also, you're an asshole. Possibly a racist asshole, definitely a stupid one.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I've been holding off on creating most of my best music because the incentive just wasn't good enough. Now I finally feel my monopoly will be protected long enough to make it worth it.
Nerd Rock In Progress
I'm glad they made this change. Now musicians will finally have a worthwhile incentive to create good music knowing they can reap the rewards for 70 years. Everyone knows there's been nothing worth listening to in the last 50 years since all the musicians have been holding back their best works for a longer copyright period. This is how copyright is intended to work, right?
Of-course songs are indestructible, so maybe children of the children's children will have those without copyright? No, of-course not, by that time the copyrights will be for 500 years or the combine lifespan of all 'authors' relatives, whichever is bigger.
You can't handle the truth.
it's overrated anyway
Just make your own music or learn to play Mozart piano concertos or something
Germany does not have the concept of copyright.
It has "Urheberrecht". (Which the organized crime loves to confuse with copyright.)
Urheberrecht is like author's right. And you can't give it away. If you made something, you have that right, nobody else, and nobody else ever will, even if you want it, and even if you sign it away. (That contract would be invalid.)
Also, nobody gives a fuck anymore about what those criminals think they can hallucinate-up to further their protection racket.
They are criminals, and I treat them as such.
The last time they tried to put up a propaganda stand at our main train station, I ripped off their posters, took the megaphone, and made people chase them out of the place.
The next time I'll not be so nice.
As other posters have noted, the original point of copyright was never to guarantee someone a lifetime income.
That said, if this is the new purpose, then change copyright to exceed 60 years if and only if the copyright has been continuously in the possession of the musician from the start. There is zero need for companies to have an extended copyright. Of course, we all know that's what it's really about...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Welcome to Global Fascism.
... you live in located? I'd like to emigrate there.
A place where a ditch digger keeps getting payed continuously through the decades, for all those ditches he dug in the past 70 years?
Sign me up for citizenship! I'll even bring my own shovel.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Why is it that copyrights last for such a long time when compared to patents? Is the work done by artists that much mote important that the work done by scientists and engineers?
Its not what it is, its something else.
Lessig was so right.
Not only is perpetual copyright bad for the myriad of reasons others will state, it's bad because it leads to the loss of cultural heritage. Since there is little economic incentive to preserve and restore old works which you can't obtain rights to, many older recordings of early blues and jazz acts are going to deteriorate to uselessness.
On another note, it's always been funny to me that Disney is one of the biggest proponents of perpetual copyright and yet most of the material for their works throughout the companies history has been public domain works from previous generations.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
There is a better way: A yearly commercialization fee. If you want to release a song for sale, you must register it and pay a fee for copyright protection. The first year, the fee is one dollar (or one Euro). For subsequent years, the fee is twice what it was in the previous year. You are free to pay the commercialization fees for as long as you wish. If the commercialization fee is not paid, the work goes into the public domain.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
the 'Beatles Act'
On balance, I'm marginally in favour of the coffin dodgers, since they at least did something creative 50 years ago. On the other side are the mooing masses who can barely a cogent sentence together put.
Anyone who pays their mortgage and their kids' dental bills from creative works, raise your hand. The rest of you, pick our pockets while our hands are up. Not that you need an invitation.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
that
Europe is batshit insane anyway with "artists".
The trouble is that the U.S. Congress uses EU insanity as an excuse to "harmonize" its copyright legislation to match what foreign countries offer in a game of copyright leapfrog. Otherwise, what's left of the U.S.-headquartered music and film industry claims it will leave the country. This was the argument for the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 in the United States.
I suspect that almost all the money that anybody is going to make from any album, is made in the early years (if not less). How many people are buying "Abby Road" albums these days?
Stealing things that are public domain to make them their property? This explain it better.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking
Don't sign with a label.
Without a label, how does a recording artist promote his or her music to people who don't listen to Internet radio? A lot of people aren't willing to pay a luxury price for a cellular data plan that would let them replace in-vehicle FM radio with Internet radio. And without a recognized music publisher, how can a songwriter be sure that his song isn't similar enough to someone else's song to attract lawsuits alleging plagiarism?*
Continue making new music throughout your adult life. If you're a musician, that should be what you want to be doing anyways.
Until physical disability keeps you from playing your instrument competently. Arthritis, vocal polyps, etc.
* Plagiarism here means infringement of copyright without attribution.
Firstly, half of the artists are dead, and won't benefit from this at all. Secondly, the remaining ones are "stealing" (the music industry's term) from the public domain. What possible justification was offered by our public legislators for this huge "aging music artist" bailout? 50 years of exclusive earnings from their hard work wasn't enough, so they had to go and "rob" another 20 from the public just as we were about to get our share as payment for legally protecting those exclusive rights for 50 years?
They've changed the bargain *after* the deal was struck, just before payment was due. Whatever you might think about extension of copyright to longer terms, doing it retroactively is profoundly WRONG. You can make a much stronger argument that this actually is "theft", in that the possession of these rights was about to change hands via a contract that was already signed.
Get a real job, you bunch of public welfare recipients. (No slight intended on ordinary people honestly searching for a real job while accepting welfare)
While I can't speak for the EU, I think the best way to get rid of continually extended copyright terms in the USA would be to make any extension retroactive - then, instead of Disney pushing for regular extensions to protect the Mouse, they'll be faced with paying compensation to all of the heirs of the original fairytales they based much of their content on.
Disney is a perfect example of why copyrights should not last forever - they built a huge empire largely based off of some public-domain fairytales that are hundreds of years old.
Among copyright, patent, and trademark, provenance matters only to copyright. Independently reinvent something that is already patented and you infringe. Independently create something that is already copyrighted and you do not infringe. I don't know exactly how copying is defined under the copyright laws of the member states of the European Union, nor to what extent the Berne Convention left the definition of copying unharmonized, but at least under United States law, there are two elements to a successful claim of copying. One is the alleged infringer's access to the copyrighted work and the other is the similarity of the works. If the alleged infringer had never had access to the plaintiff's work, there is no infringement. I imagine that the longer term of copyright is rationalized by this allowance of independent creation.
However, in practice, this doesn't work. Legal counsel for the mainstream media has found ways to convince a judge to assume access, such as if a musical work has been broadcast on television or played on the radio.
Like Disney in America, the copyright length in Europe will slide to be b + 20, where b is the current age of the oldest Beatles song.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
Announcing the ruling, the council of the European Union said: "Performers generally start their careers young and the current term of protection of 50 years often does not protect their performances for their entire lifetime.
"Therefore, some performers face an income gap at the end of their lifetimes."
This stinks. Maybe they should not have stopped recording. Most of us do not collect for our performances 50 years ago.
for the lobbysts. Good job, EU!
Perhaps I'm trolling, perhaps I'm not.
Accountants try to write us d-d-down,
Just because royalties can still be found
Copyrights keep us sustained,
I hope we die before we go public domain
"I tried to sleep my way to the top, but my alarm clock always wakes me right up" - TMBG
I am almost at a loss for words in expressing my disgust at this. 50 years is now 70 years? There are no 'artists' whos work is considered 'contemporary' and 70 years old. 70 years is 3 and 1/2 generations. As an artist, you are hailed (or derided) by your peers. One generation later, you are either revered or forgotten. Three generations out, and you may have influenced other artists that are influencing the current generation, but you are forgotten. The beatles are only ever talked about because of the baby boom generation being larger than others. If it wasn't for that, they would have gone off the air (decades) ago. Their last original single came out just over 40 years ago. Even a lot of classic rock stations don't play them anymore. Was music popular in 1920 still on the radio when Elvis was on the radio in 1960? Not a lot! Yet we must protect all and sundry, not from 50 years ago, but from 70 years ago. This is utter and pure rubbish. Milking and milking and milking not a dry cow, but a dead cow. The EU screwed up very badly here. It should be (at most) 40 years. We can give them 2 generations (the full effect from the first generation, and archival/influential effects on a second generation). After that, its historical. If they don't repeal this, I would be in favor of digging up archeological music from Ancient Rome or Greece, and (in the bullshit way the RIAA does) wave my arms about and start crying 'prior art', and have *ALL* of their claims brought to null!
Why don't they just do what they really want and make it so copyright lasts forever. I think they'll know they'll get more opposition if they're honest about it.
I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.
When I was in my 20s, I worked for a company that built swimming pools. People are still enjoying those pools, but I haven't made a dime off of them since 1981.
That's not fair. I'm going to go knock on a few doors and demand royalties.
Well, he has been de-composing for a good 30 years now...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
This is freaking CRAZY! Hello Europeans!! Bend over for the RIAA! Deeper, deeeeeeperrrrr, now hold it while we screw your "public domain" (mwahahahahahahahaa) over.
Don't be STUPID next time and vote for the SAME OLD, SAME OLD parties that you have been voting for the past few decades as they don't give a DAMN about your rights when it means a fat cheque coming their way.
no copyrights
And no industry too
Imagine all the people
Living for no pay
Yohooohoo~
If you haven't made "enough" money in an compositions first 50 years, another 20 years won't help at all. I doubt many 70 year old musicians will have to go on well fare because the stuff the made in the 20's are about to expire. Either they were successful and then they have made enough from it in 50 years or they aren't and adding years won't help at all.
This absolutely pisses me off. Laws are supposed to reflect the people's sense of justice and this absolutely does not. Music is supposed to be culture not business. I just don't see the rationale of them being able to milk the same old songs for 70 years, when the average lifespan of a modern day pop song is like 2 months. I've gone to quite a bit of trouble to acquire my music/books/videos legally, even with idiotic geographical restrictions and other hoops they make you jump, but this camels back is about to break, and I will just stop caring!
Imagine Neo-nazis using Michael Jackson songs to promote them.
That is actually kinda funny, people who believe in the superiority of the Aryan bloodline using the music of an vaguely effeminate black man and Jehovah's Witnesses who married a white woman to promote their cause.
I am pretty sure that the ghost of MJ will rest easy, knowing it will never happen.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Unfortunately since people don't understand shit about copyright law, it's difficult to have an intelligent or interesting (to them) conversation on the subject. You start talking about it and their eyes glaze over. That limits the potential of a political party like the Pirate Party to gain supporters.
So what the pirate party needs to do is have a front "Give Everyone Candy" party, and give them sticky candy that takes a while to eat. Then indoctrinate them when their mouths are full.
If this works, it would lead to a substantial increase in Global Warming, though, so perhaps it's not a good idea.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Should they still be granted protection? I say yes. I think they should be granted the protection of copyright for as long as the original performers live or a set number of years, whichever is longer. I see no loss to the public that the original creator/performer of a creative work retains copyright throughout their life. Their estate should also profit but for a much much shorter time if the original creator/performer did not live a long life. I would say on the order of seven years.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
...not lengthened. Shorten it to 40 years (which is twice the 20 yr life of a patent). Copyright holders can then do what everyone else in the world has to do, save for retirement, and/or keep working. And, yes I have created numerous copyrighted works, I speak from experience. As much as the idea of owning copyright for my entire life sounds great (and I'm not opposed to making it 40 years or natural lifetime of a human creator, whichever is greater), I don't see that it's any benefit to the copyright holder or to society to have longer term copyrights. I'm willing to consider a longer term if someone can make a strong case for it, but I haven't yet seen a convincing argument.
Corporations (non human entities) should only hold a copyright for at most 40 years as there is no "natural lifetime" of a corporation. Frankly, if a corporation hasn't recouped their investment after 20-30 years, they're almost certainly not going to, so 20-30 years may be a better maximum for a corporation, but that's another issue. After those years of a corporation holding a copyright, it should either revert to the individual authors/performers, or become public domain.
As for this law, it doesn't extend the copyright on the original lyrics/music, so it doesn't help the songwriters. Who it helps are the entities (e.g. record labels) who hold the copyrights to specific recordings. The performers will see some benefit, but anyone who has looked at recording contracts knows that the performers typically get 10% or less (usually much less after the labels perform their biased math).
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
The real reason this was done, was a result of a flaw of the system.
There are people with money and a vested interest in extending the copyright, but there are no organized groups with money lobbying against this. So, every time this rolls around in ANY country with a copyright system, it will get extended.
politicians will roll over for any group with lobbyists, when there isn't any organized opposition. It is in their interest to pass laws that people with influence like.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
And so on, and so on, and so on.
What they are holding they will never give up. They want copyright in perpetuity throughout the universe. They will keep getting extension after extension well into the time the Sun burns out and Earth is reduced to a cold ember.
Heck, the RIAA would sue God if they thought they could get money from him.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Without a label, how does a recording artist promote his or her music to people who don't listen to Internet radio?
You're right: without a music label you can't possibly make money from playing music. You should give up now.
Without a label, how does a recording artist promote his or her music to people who don't listen to Internet radio?
Perform works live. Get your fans (who like your stuff) to convince their friends to like your stuff. Drop some recordings on Youtube, iTunes, or any other distribution network you can get your hands on.
And without a recognized music publisher, how can a songwriter be sure that his song isn't similar enough to someone else's song to attract lawsuits alleging plagiarism?*
They can't, but neither can a 'recognized music publisher' protect you from that sort of thing. Your options if accused of plagiarism are:
1. Give the accuser a cut.
2. Cease & desist like they asked.
3. Go to court, especially if they don't sound at all similar.
Continue making new music throughout your adult life. If you're a musician, that should be what you want to be doing anyways.
Until physical disability keeps you from playing your instrument competently. Arthritis, vocal polyps, etc.
Physical disability doesn't completely shut down a musician (e.g. Beethoven or Stevie Wonder). Age doesn't really stop 'em either - Paul McCartney is still performing in his late 60's. In any event, if they're really concerned about that problem, they can get disability insurance like the rest of us.
I am officially gone from
As I read the numbers in http://www.ipo.gov.uk/report-termextension.pdf and assuming this is roughly the same across the whole Union they hope for something in the area of 1 EUR per citizen in additional revenue for this (over the whole time, not annually). Note that every Fortune 500 corporation pulls in more revenue than the music industry makes from recorded music sales if http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/mar/28/global-recorded-music-sales-fall has the right numbers. If Western World citizens were to pay for all the global revenue, it'd be about one dollar and a half per month and person, factor out taxes and revenue that is wasted on copyright law suits, development of drm technologies, and so on, and you likely arrive at a dollar per month and person as a rule of thumb, much of which you can pull in from premium things like sale of pre-packaged physical media which are nicer to hand out as gifts so people would buy those even if you could just download the music instead (obviously selling physical media would then have to be restricted in some way).
In Germany you have to pay a mandatory fee if you have a radio or television set to finance public broadcasting. Revenue for that is five times the revenue the music industry pulls in in Germany (7.6 billion versus 1.5 billion EUR). We could increase the fee for that by around 10%, making the income non-taxable, and would have the revenue covered, so the limitations on copying music are largely unnecessary to ensure musicians are well fed. Distributing the money fairly is the only real problem there.
At the very least they could have capped it. There's no way the ones that are earning hundreds of times the national average wage should have kept these rights. Could easily have had a cap on it. Don't get me wrong, I say scrap the lot but would be happy moving in the right direction.
Mod Parent Up
In a society where such a small number of people can cause such large problems for everyone... the easy (though illegal) solution is to track down those small number of people who are causing the problems, and stone them to death. ...We're not quite there yet, but I can see a future when we will be.
Perform works live.
I seem to remember having been told that not all genres are amenable to this. For example, the Beatles stopped performing live soon after Revolver because the studio effects they were applying to create a unique sound couldn't be reproduced live, and it hadn't yet occurred them to lip sync.
1. Give the accuser a cut.
2. Cease & desist like they asked.
If they ask for a 100% cut on existing copies and cease and desist on further copies, how does one afford to pay this?
The sole interest of the United States and the primary object in conferring the [copyright] monopoly lie in the general benefits derived by the public from the labors of authors.
So does this extension mean the EU has a different opinion on the function of copyright?
Don't sign with a label.
Without a label, how does a recording artist promote his or her music to people who don't listen to Internet radio? A lot of people aren't willing to pay a luxury price for a cellular data plan that would let them replace in-vehicle FM radio with Internet radio. And without a recognized music publisher, how can a songwriter be sure that his song isn't similar enough to someone else's song to attract lawsuits alleging plagiarism?*
* Plagiarism here means infringement of copyright without attribution.
As a recording artist who has no label contract or publishing deal, I can tell you that my personal experience has been that Internet radio is no panacea for getting my own music heard and played. The main problem for recording artists is the same as it was back in the 20th Century: it's very, very difficult to get potential listeners' attention. Historically, the role of record labels primarily was promotion of their artists, along with distribution of their work (and, for new artists, the process of "artist development", as well - a term which mostly meant matching raw talent with the right producer to capture the sound that made the A&R guy sign the artist to begin with, and to mold his/her/their sound into a form that would sell records). For physical CDs and vinyl, the labels' distribution arms are still important (and will continue to be, as long as there exist fans who desire a physical CD or vinyl album to add to their collection), digital distribution notwithstanding. But their real importance lies in promotion.
Realistically speaking, the vast majority of unsigned artists have essentially zero ability to mount and sustain a nationwide or global promotion campaign for their own recordings. Getting people to notice we exist is not increasingly easy in the digital age - it's increasingly difficult, because the amount of competition for the listeners' attention has increased so much, as well. There are a kajillion bands out there, all clamoring for an audience, and getting that audience's attention is still the hardest part of getting anything other than esthetic satisfaction from all the effort that goes into recording.
It's easy for /jerks to prattle about how a recording artist should plan make money from playing out and give away his/her/their recordings as promotional devices. The problem is that you simply don't make very much money playing live unless you're already famous. You certainly don't make enough to afford health insurance, for instance, or that 401K that some sneering codemonkey mentioned as a retirement vehicle in a prior post. Working musicians mostly don't have 401Ks. And, if they do, they're way underfunded, because the money just doesn't stretch that far.
For all their parasitic ways, what record labels still bring to the table is the money and machinery to promote the artists they sign, and the music that they make. Payola is still very much alive in the radio industry here in America, for instance. Nowadays, ClearChannel calls it "research fees", but it's still payola, and your music doesn't get played without it. Not to mention billboards, posters, stand-ups, commercials - all those things cost real money, and it's the record labels that pay for them.
As for copyright, I spent three months recording Whatever Happened To The Revolution. That's an average of four hours a day, working six days a week. And I have yet to make a dime off of it. So, when some know-it-all blathers about how I only deserve to get paid once for that effort (and keep in mind that I put a similar amount of time and effort into every song I record) I want to smack that fool upside the head, because he has no idea what being a recording artist - with or without a label contract - is all about.
Yes, I agree that the copyright system is badly broken. From my perspective, t
Check out my novel.
Now, if you had a work of the painted kind, it goes for sale in auction, a percentage has to go to the original artist.
It doesn't work like that. However if they keep extending the length of copyright then it will not be long before Leonardo da Vinci's heirs can start suing tourists photographing the Mona Lisa in the Louvre.
Instead of flogging songs to death that were written five decades ago, why don't they WRITE SOME NEW SONGS?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Just keep moving the goal posts.
The laws were never for your benefit, silly!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The labels are paying for extensions on already-created works that only serve to enrich them at the expense of the public, and they have the gall to call file-sharers thieves? The system is broken and it's money that has broken it.
So... in ten years, it will be about $1,000. Twenty years in, it will cost about $1,000,000 to keep your copyright for one more year? You might want to work on your numbers a bit, unless that was indeed your intention.
...do we only need to have mass executions of these record label workers every half century?
[The royalties] can extend their lives and the lives of their families who inherit their songs."
Why? Why society must subsist all these brats, who have contributed nothing other than being born from the star sperm or ovum? It's because they're speshul? Because they're somehow better than other children? Can someone explain this to me?
This is getting screwy. First, it's "we promise that copyrighted material will fall into to the public domain in 14 years". Then they're all like "No, wait, we meant to say 30 years. Definitely this stuff will be in public domain in 30 years." And then they're like "Fifty years, people definitely deserve to reap the benefits for fifty years. 30 years is totally unfair why would we have ever said only a mere 30 years?" And now they dare venture to say that "Actually 70 years. We gotta incentivise...stuff...you know...and...if you just wait for 70 years then it will so TOTALLY be in public domain. Promise." Sorry, guys, we've been waiting for 36 extra years already, and the initial 14 years was probably longer than we should have waited in the first place. You honestly think that we are OK with waiting another 20??? Even if we were willing to wait, do you really think we would be stupid enough to believe you this time? It's eerie how relevant this clip is: Lucy swiping the football from Charlie Brown.
it is funny how artists complain about the freeloading mentality, when they are the ones who get the privilege of protection of a certain business model. you seem to live in very cozy bubble if you think just because making a piece of art takes a lot of time and effort you are entitled to a lifelong monopoly. to me that is equivalent to making a sandcastle and then demanding that society has to build walls to protect it from the tides.
i, as a part of society, feel no natural obligation to pay for courts, judges and lawmakers just because somebody has decided to publish a piece of information that he wants protection for.
copyright is a privilege, not a natural property right.
the deal was this:
1) society gives up on the right to copy a certain piece of information for a certain timespan.
2) society pays for the enforcement of 1), thereby subsidizing the business model "create once - sell many times as a monopolist - profit".
3) society (hopefully) benefits by having incentivized the creation of information.
as long as beneficiaries such as artists and other information creators acknowledge this simple reality, i am happy to accept the copyright deal and stick by its rules. but when these beneficiaries complain that i am stealing their work because i refuse to accept the transformation of the limited copyright privilege into an unlimited property right, they become my enemies.
if you say you deserve lifelong protection for a piece of information, you are essentially saying you deserve lifelong subsidy (because this protection is expensive and has to be paid for by others). you are free not to publish any piece of information in order to restrict its flow. but once you publish a piece of information, you can not expect society to control its flow indefinitely.
the notion of information ownership - i.e. intellectual property - is absurd. its consequent enforcement is totalitarian in nature, which offsets any possible benefit. it is therefore to be rejected.
...or Swedish rock bands, cause there is no such thing as the "Republic of Europe".
This reminds me of that scene in that TV movie about that TV show's cliffhanger...
As the episode is broadcasted around the world, camera cuts to two mustached men sitting in a gray room somewhere in Moldavia, turning to each other with puzzled looks on their faces.
Then one of them shrugs and says: "Must be some other Moldavia somewhere.".
BTW... Moldavia? Country in Europe.
Also, Russia? That too is in Europe. In Asia too, but definitely also in Europe.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
A fee like that is an excellent idea that would stop the greedy copyright spongers dead in their tracks. You could tempt them by starting well below a dollar - say, a single grain of rice. That should reduce the term to well below 64 years.
The copyright term has been extended from 50 to 70 years
Sounds to me, that the deal with the public has been changed.
If they are going to extend it, which I don't agree with, it should start now, not retroactively. The deal was already made, and it's being changed, without the public's consent, to prevent works from entering the public domain where it belongs.
People know this is wrong, but when they go and download it to get back what was taken from them, somehow they are the criminals.
Why are you commenting on my explicitly offensive remark to someone who has clearly deserved it?
I called him an asshole, while providing possible motivation for his post.
Yet, you breezed over my offensive remark in order so you could preach "freedom to offend" - by using a quote.
A quote, might I add, from this article - where this also was said, by that very same Rowan Atkinson.
To criticise a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous but to criticise their religion - that is a right. That is a freedom," he said.
So basically, your preach-quote was spoken in the same breath as that one above where he basically concurs with my diagnosis that the OP is an asshole.
Of the stupid sort.
I sure as hell hope that your irony detector was already broken before you posted that.
I don't want to be the one responsible for it exploding and killing/maiming you.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
IMHO There is not much of an issue here. Whether performer copyright expires or not, you still cannot use the recordings without permission of the composer or his/her heirs (and that for 70 years after the composer's death - far too long). Only arrangements of very old songs would have actually gone fully into the public domain.
Nabil Stendardo
By participating, not spamming, as much as you can in the online communities of people who would buy your kind of music. Whether it be twitter or forums there is always a community to connect to
xkcd
"Be grateful for what you have. You may never know when you may lose it."
The kids out there are already having a tough time understanding what is legal and truly free for the taking and what isn't. Just imagine if works that are relatively contemporary started going public domain. It would be a disaster with some folks confirming for the kids that indeed there are SOME popular works that aren't classical music that are available in the public domain while others aren't. The little puke-faces would surely appropriate the majority of the catalogue that didn't include who's hot just right now claiming "it's so hard to tell which ones are public domain and which ones aren't". In short? It's what every generation knows about the generation that comes right after it but still acts as if it's a big surprise somehow: the kids are NOT all right. That's just a song. And no - it is not a song you are allowed to freely copy and share around despite the fact.
I'm in the States, so I've had to put up with this kind of madness since Bono made that ridiculous bill. (At least a skiing trip provided the fate he deserved for that. And whatever family lineage there was - if you could call it that - took care of itself. lol)
What you do is stop buying commercial music, and start supporting artists that release their music under fairer and more acceptable terms. If you haven't figured it out, browsing audio sites like soundcloud, ccmixter, archive.org, and even self-releases at popular video sites like YouTube or Vimeo - it's very easy to find artists releasing under creative commons. Finding what you may think are good artists may take a little more searching, but real talent isn't as rare as the entertainment marketers (record industry) have made it out to be.
Supporting is just some kind of online transaction away. I'd say Paypal as it's easiest, but if better methods can be found - go for it. Either donate directly to the artist, or donate in support of the websites and services that they provide in making the music you listen to available.
The downside (if you can consider it that) is that you pretty much have to burn your own CDs or transfer all the files to your media players. I've yet to see any radio station non-industry musicians any air-play. This also means that you personally have to take some role in promoting an artist you enjoy listening to. We the people have the internet, but the industry still has its lock-in on the airwaves.
Provenance matters only to copyright. Use someone else's trademarked name and you infringe. But even under copyright, a copyright owner may prove it highly unlikely that you in fact independently created a work. There are ways to infer probable access from "striking similarity" or from the ubiquity of copies or performances of a given work.
So yes, they stole from me and you and everyone else on the planet and gave what they stole to corporate interests that probably had no part in producing the art in the first place. In the public domain means I can copy, record make derivative works from and do anything I can think of with that art that is in the public domain. None of that is allowed under copyright so just because a work is available somewhere in some form is not equivalent to the public domain in any sense at all. Without the public domain, there would be no raw material for artists to build on to create new art. The public domain is an essential part of our culture and when it stolen like this we are all poorer because we lose the art that would have been created based on that public domain work. It is wrong, it is theft and the EU should be ashamed of itself.
I spend most of my time watching various media in which a certain, diverse minority of the human population, are screaming about how if we don't fundamentally change our entire attitude and way of life, we are literally not going to survive.
It is becoming extremely difficult for me to emotionally tolerate that, when in contrast to it, the sort of thing we're seeing here continues to happen.
No matter what disasters we see, the majority just keep soaking up lolcats on YouTube; utterly oblivious. Nothing seems to be able to wake the sheep. Nothing at all.
In a loose translation of a saying that was popular back when I served my term in the army: "You haven't yet earned the right to address someone like me."
Literally, "You don't have the days to talk to me".
I.e. Your UID is almost 10 times the size of mine.
For future reference, grammar Nazism is not an adult activity.
It's a game for arrogant teenage knowitalls, without forethought or consideration for the fact that most people online don't natively speak English.
Particularly at places like Slashdot, where you may often bump into people with several foreign languages under their belt.
And spellchecker errors happen to the best of us when it's way past our bed time.
Playing a game of grammar Nazi only makes you look childish in such cases. At best.
When your grammar Nazi position is your only argument against the parent post, it also makes you look like a troll.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
...than NATO is.
Also, EU is not Europe.
Europe is a continent. EU is an economic and political union of some states (so far) which are situated on that continent.
States with their own laws and social policies.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Let me see this straight ... they can retain any copyright they want for so far as they want, as far as I am concerned. I will not pay.
As long as they are happy to provide eager consumers with licenses to their music, and said consumers are happy to pay up, I see no wrong here. Everybody knows up-front the deal, vote with the wallet, right ? I personally do not care for the latest Bieber and the like record, and I do not care for Beatles recording made 40 years ago. I'm not gonna pay, and this is fine. I do not feel entitled to any kind of music just because it was produced, oh, so long ago...
I will, and I do pay for live performances. I feel that those 20-40 pounds tickets are compensating more than enough for a couple of hours of maybe good music (it's a gamble, right?) and for occasional hearing of said music on the radio. About which, the public subsidized channels should be forced to play only public domain music. Are you a young artist screaming for radio time ? Release your catchy song under public license, and profit later, if you're good. Not entirely fair, but life isn't.
Read this article today: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/12/restaurant-music_n_958419.html
I don't know about you all, but I'm tired of music companies raping us.
what a joke... the EU is the laughing stock of the rest of the world. FAIL.
Dang, just when Surfer Bird and Papa Oom Mow Mow were about to fall into the public domain.
As I said when this came up and fell through a few years back, Cliff Richards' actions are those of petty greed and unbefitting his royal title. As such, he should publicly and without delay renounce his knighthood. http://www.petitiononline.com/cliffren/petition.html Unfortunately, only one person in the whole world felt strongly enough to show solidarity, but they did give a hearty "Hear hear!"
The Beatles sold 30 million albums in the US alone in the last decade (2000-10), making them the number 2 musical act overall in sales. The figures would be similar for the EU. Everyone knows this extension is wrong, but there's no way they'll ever leave that kind of money on the table. If there's one thing that drives politics, it's money and greed. In 20 years, it will be extended again, unless everyone has stopped buying.
Strikes me that a smart move for copyfighting orgs, Pirate Parties etc would be to fight to prevent any copright/patent extensions from being retroactive if they can't block this in individual countries. If as claimed copyright is there to encourage musicians to produce new works, arguably it won't do any good for those that have already produced them and they were produced with the deal of a 50 year copyright anyway. This way, any extension won't be a problem until 2061 when we'll either have indefinite copyrights or have given up on the whole scam.
I be honest I'm surprised that ORG, EFF etc don't try to anchor the idea of copyright as a limited deal by going on the offensive and campaigning for reductions in copyright duration in other areas.
John Smith, general secretary of the Musicians' Union, said it was a "brilliant moment".
"We were having to deal with quite old people who were saying: 'My music's been used for something else - it's been sampled, it's been used in a pop song, it's been used in an advert.' And we couldn't do anything for them."
You could have told them to relax and appreciate the fact their music is still around and being listened to after 50 years.
Put yourself in one of these artists' shoes. How would you feel about people sampling your music 50 years after you wrote it? I can't imagine being that invested, or caring that much, about something I'd done 50 years prior, in my youth.
Well, if anyone can legally define pi as 3, he is retarded enough to define infinity as 8.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Disclaimer: I'm musician and once I recorded bunch of pieces which took about 2 years of my life (real instruments, real voice, real mixing). Yeah, I'm perfectionist, sue me. They're released under CC now.
Sorry, but you are wrong and you can claim us as enemies as much as you want - you *don't* have any God/Nature/whatever given rights to profit. You have to earn it. Can't do it as performer or musician, you're not good enough, not lucky enough - sorry, but that's life. That's how things IS for rest of us. Why you should be different, huh? Why people who contributions are really worthy to public releases their copyrighted works under CC or PD or allow share non-commercially? Not all they earn big bucks. So tell me? Maybe they admit that music is just for their hearts, that it's not necessary to bring them profit?
For song and movie it is quite clear that even 20 years from publishing is way too much, but I could live with that. Tell me how many songs have gained creds for their owners after 20 years? Several performers comes into mind, all swimming in money already earned from these songs.
These extensions are not for performers, they're not for authors - they are for companies so they can claim that song is actually their property (according to law, it's not) and so they can tell shareholders - hey, we have billions worth of property, invest in us.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
Guess I'll keep illegally listening to those downloads. I started out downloading music because I was broke and lazy, now I consider it civil disobedience. Thanks music industry! Until juries start refusing to enforce ridiculous laws and people refuse to follow them, the thought police will keep criminalizing the most basic of human instincts: to share stories around a campfire.
There are 0x40000000 types of people, those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
Funny, but it's not like it makes sense to express an integer as an IEEE float to begin with...
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Sorry, but you are wrong and you can claim us as enemies as much as you want - you *don't* have any God/Nature/whatever given rights to profit. You have to earn it.
Sorry, but you mistake my position, and you misattribute to me somebody else's position.
It's clear that English is not your natal language, so perhaps that helps in part to account for your error.
Here's the thing you misunderstand: My statement, "if you're arguing that I have no claim of ownership over my own art, then you're my enemy," is about control of my material, not profit from it. You chose to make your own recordings freely available under CC licensing. That is a perfect example of an artist - YOU - exercising control over his own work. Not demanding profit from it. Exercising control over it.
If you have no valid claim of ownership of your own work, then you have no right to release it under CC licensing. Instead, you permit others to take that choice away from you and appropriate your work for themselves whether you agree to it or not.
The distinction is not subtle. It's fundamental. My work is my property. Your work is your property. We are each free to give it away, sell it, or keep it strictly to ourselves, as we individually choose, only because our own work is our own property.
And, if you're arguing that I have no claim of ownership over my own art, then you're my enemy.
Check out my novel.
it doesn't really matter if you meant "control" or "profit".
if you really don't want your song to be used for the next nazi party rally, just don't publish it. once you have published it, you can't expect the others to pay for this kind of protection until the end of your life.
a limited-time monopoly on profit and control is fine, but don't expect anybody to accept a lifelong claim.
...you can almost hear me shedding a single tear for the Anonymous Coward and his poor reputation and employment status.
Also, it is a minor point in the comment where I call him a stupid asshole and POSSIBLY a racist - not in the Ultimate Scheme of the Ultimate Everything.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
20% of those points were +1 Funny and 30% were +1 underrated.
As for mod points... They are not what they used to be. Lately I've been getting them constantly. Like, several times in a single week.
I'm guessing it has something to do with all those disposable accounts spammers keep opening.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Long exposure can severely impair the functioning of one's sarcasm detector.
I mean, it's not like we haven't seen posts like yours or crazier, written in a completely serious tone.
Personally, I find that increasing the amount of sarcasm in the post helps.
I.e. you should have added professions like lion tamers, executioners, prostitutes, mimes, clowns and beggars.
Although, even such a list may be misunderstood being how all of those professions (aside from beggars) are a part of the entertainment industry as well.
Particularly when clowns and mimes get executed by throwing them to the lions.
All that is missing in that picture is free beer and blowjobs and it would be a closest thing to heaven a working man could hope for on this planet.
So feel free to add bartenders to your list.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
When the length of EU copyrights increases by 40%, the respect for those copyrights drops by 40%
"The fences are down. It's a free concert, now." - A Woodstock attendee
Copyright steals material from the public domain, period. The only reason we accepted in in the first place was because the artists said "unless you promise not to copy our stuff, we'll stop producing it". Basically, they took us hostage and we didn't have the balls to call their bluff. So a compromise was struck where we promised not to copy their stuff for X years, and they'd continue producing. Now they want to go back on that deal and say X isn't long enough. Rinse and repeat whenever the term of X comes close to expiring.
There is an inherent right to copy. If you don't want something copied, you keep it SECRET - you don't publish it. Copyright is a farce.