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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."
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.
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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
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.
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