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."
But home taping is killing music!
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
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 ||
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.
The real translation here:
"The music industry prefers their stars young and naive about the business, so they don't realize how much they're getting screwed by their labels. And because we like to cast off our acts before they're 30, we'll use the fact that they're broke by the time they're 70 as a way to build support for giving us copyrights for longer."
The solutions, for musicians are:
1. Don't sign with a label. Many musicians have made it without one, and those who have signed with one generally consider them to be a really bad deal.
2. Continue making new music throughout your adult life. If you're a musician, that should be what you want to be doing anyways.
3. Promote sharing music as a way of building up your fan base. The Grateful Dead did it, MC Frontalot did it, you can do it too.
4. Did I mention that you shouldn't sign with a label?
I am officially gone from
"The right to offend is more important than the right to not be offended" - Rowan Atkinson
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I can't speak for the EU, but at least in the US, the legal thinking is that you can't make it indefinite due to the U.S. Constitution ("To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"). Unfortunately, the Supremes seem to think that any number is fine...so yes, 90 years or 100,000 years would theoretically be fine, as long as it is not "infinity".
In other news, the legal system is completely retarded.
Advice: on VPS providers
I'm not sure who currently holds the rights, but for years Michael Jackson owned most of the Beatles catalog. At this point, I'm not sure who owns them at this point.
Correct, but to be fair the original point of copyright law in Europe was to regulate and control printers. The crown got control over what could be printed and printers got a monopoly (limited time, could be reissued). It's much easier to monitor the printing of seditious materials when only a handful of people can legally print. I like the new purpose better than the original...
I didn't know this until I heard it on the radio last week but Yoko Ono has had 7 consecutive number one singles on the US dance charts.. you can verify this on wikipedia.
http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/internal_market/businesses/intellectual_property/l26049_en.htm
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.
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