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."

Comments

Just leave the civilians alone

[betterunixthanunix]

Keep copyright where it belongs: a regulation on businesses. It makes no difference what the term is if they leave home users alone.

Re:Just leave the civilians alone

[rockout]

No, the delay came from the time it took from you being at the age where you enjoyed new movies to being at the age you are now. It's a universal constant, best expressed as a function of X + ~15 or 25 years, where X is the birth year of anyone who complains that "Music/movies/everything was better back in the day, it sucks now!"

Incentivise

[HTH NE1]

Yes, we must redouble our efforts to incentivise John Lennon to produce more new music.

Slackers

[El_Muerte_TDS]

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."

Just get a job like the rest of us

Re:Slackers

[qzjul]

Or.... make more good music? Wasn't that the purpose of copyright in the first place?

Re:Slackers

[DinDaddy]

Oh right. Like you aren't going to continue to get paid for the work you're doing now through your elderly years. Why shouldn't artists be entitled to the same thing ditch diggers and chimney sweeps get?

Re:Slackers

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

If it's that much of a concern, why not change the copyright length to max(50, artist.lifetime)?

Re:Slackers

[mypalmike]

More to the point:

1. Most people face an income gap at the end of their lifetimes.
2. Record label execs, who don't face such a gap, are the ones who will actually benefit from this.

Re:Slackers

[Anonymous Coward]

Ditch diggers and chimney sweeps pay into retirement plans - they don't continue to get paid for having dug that ditch/cleaned that chimney for the rest of eternity, combined with some uninvolved company continuing to be allowed to collect money for that chimney having been swept years and decades after their deaths.

By all means, I fully support the idea of artists being allowed to pay into retirement plans, and even encourage that they do so. It will help them deal with that income gap at the end of their lives that ditch diggers and chimney sweeps face when they're too old to be able to continue digging ditches and sweeping chimneys.

Meanwhile, if they're not actually doing anything before then, maybe the artists should try to get a job? It's what ditch diggers and chimney sweeps who are out of work do.

Re:Slackers

[KingSkippus]

Just get a job like the rest of us

I cannot emphasize how insightful this is.

The thing is, most of us get paid for the work we do, but no more. If we want to get paid more, guess what? We have to work more.

But not the artists! No, once they create something, apparently, they are entitled to get paid for it the rest of their lives, and then once they die, their children get paid for it, and their children's children. Or more likely, the company that distributed it gets paid indefinitely for it.

What's left out of these conversations is this: They got paid for what they were doing when they were doing it. Why didn't they do what the rest of us normal folks have to do, save up money in a retirement plan? After all, once I retire, I certainly don't expect my company to keep paying me for the work I'm doing today, let alone the company I worked for 20 years ago to keep paying me for those Windows 3.1 PCs I set up and repaired at the time. No, instead, I contribute regularly to my 401k plan so that once I do get older, I don't have to depend on still getting paid for work I did 50 years before.

Meanwhile, by extending the copyright, they are denying our society our cultural heritage. I can't share with kids of today what music was like back in my youth because it's irrevocably locked up by copyrights until well after I'll be dead. Everyone keeps forgetting that the purpose of copyrights is not to guarantee artists an income for a lifetime. It is, at least according to the U.S. Constitution, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." How does this possibly promote the progress of science and useful arts? Do people honestly think that a 25-year-old is not going to create works of art because they're worried about it falling into the public domain when they're 75 years old instead of 95? That's ridiculous.

Re:Slackers

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with what you've said is that you're implying that the extended copyright term will in some way benefit these artists, despite your own claim that the greedy fatcat record labels do nothing but leech. (Which I do agree with - they generally seem to serve no other purpose than to stifle new talent that they don't own, and rip off the talent that they do own.)

The income gap at the end of their lives however, is partly because of those same executives, who will not be forwarding any additional monies to the artists in question - they (the recording labels) own the work, and unless the artist is extremely lucky in court, the artist is unlikely to see a penny from it. Extending copyright will not solve this problem, it will only provide further lawsuit fuel for the various recording label associations to pursue the fans of the artists to obtain "fair payment for the artist", without sending a single penny of that money to the artist it was supposedly collected in the name of, just like they already do now.

Re:Slackers

[Dunbal]

Do you think it's easy making money in the music business?

No. Making money is not easy in any business.

Do you think it doesn't involve hard work?

Come work call with me at my hospital and I will show you hard work. Stay up until 4am because you're coming down off your high and can't get the song right or because the drugs just don't inspire any more. Be a little tired. Make a mistake and the song sucks. OK come with me and stand here for 11 hours trying to repair some kid's esophagus and liver, when you can't even see straight anymore because you've been working the past 30 hours and remember that if you screw up you're looking at being fired at best and being thrown in jail for manslaughter at worst. Don't talk to me about hard work, ok? Entertainers have somehow convinced people that they belong at the top of the food chain. Real people sometimes do much more important work, and work a hell of a lot harder for their dollar.

Re:Slackers

[mabhatter654]

No, originally copyright was 14 years. Then we felt sorry for artists with popular songs still being played while they were broke. Then we felt sorry for their spouses and kids they were supporting... Now what?

Here's the REAL question that proves the point best: Do artists (families) get to renegotiate the contract terms for the extended 20 years? The record company didn't create the work, or extend the copyright... Why do THEY get a FREE 20 years more??

Re:Slackers

[digitalsolo]

Let us know how the sales of the software you wrote today is doing in 50+ years, sans copyright troll behavior.

Re:Slackers

[coastal984]

So you build a hotel. You rent out it's rooms to patrons. You get income from your creation, which you own.

Now your hotel passes it's 50th birthday. Should your rooms still cost money?

By your argument, after the hotel is of a certain age, it should become public, and anyone should be able to use it, for free. What is that, you say? Build another hotel if I want to continue to earn income?

A performance or artwork has as much potential value as any tangible object. To those who say otherwise and call artists slackers, I call you freeloaders.

Flame away, but I'm just speaking MHO.

Re:Slackers

[_0xd0ad]

False analogy. You aren't paid for building a hotel and letting it fall down piece by piece. You're paid for maintaining and staffing the hotel and providing a service to the patrons. If you built the hotel and let it fall down, not only would you not make money but eventually the city would condemn the building and/or repossess the land - and yes, you'd have to either do a major renovation or build a new hotel if you want to continue to earn income.

Re:Slackers

[hoggoth]

This past weekend I was at a barbeque sitting talking to three guys all about my age (early 40's). After a few minutes I found out that one was a cop, recently retired who was collecting a healthy pension and was trying to decide if he wanted to get another job or just do some traveling and enjoy himself. The other was a postal worker who was upset because the union has told everyone to work slower because postal mail is down over 20% and there isn't enough work for everyone but according to union rules nobody can ever be laid off. The third was a city fireman who has retired and was outfitting his boat for a year-long trip from New York down to the Caribbean with his entire family.

After a few moments of this it struck me that I was paying for all of this.I was the only one of the three that was generating money from outside the government system and paying into it. All three of them were getting paid from the government, were not working as hard as me or not at all, and their taxes are an accounting trick because the money was going from the government to them and back to the government.

I'm for copyright law

[GodfatherofSoul]

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?

Extension == Theft

[dwandy]

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.

Re:Extension == Theft

[DinDaddy]

+1

Saw a headline somewhere last week that described it as such - "stolen from the public domain"

Re:I am ok with it almost...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do we really want to incentivize the killing of the holders of valuable copyrights?

This is theft from the public domain!

[kawabago]

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!

Yes, if you must

[bradley13]

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...

Where is this socialist-communist utopia...

[denzacar]

... 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.

The real problem is the system

[TiggertheMad]

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.

Re:Fun fact:

[erroneus]

You're just trolling right?

You know the state of the industry today don't you? The publishers have dominated the market in every possible way all the way to routinely paying their racketeering fines as a "cost of doing business" when doing their payola schemes with the broadcasters. It is, let's say, a difficult market for an independent to get into the market. What's more, it has been shown that the overzealous publishing industry has been suing people for playing independent music in public under the presumption that they own the rights to all musical performances. The situation is extremely bad and out of hand.

So yes, they are, in a practical sense, mutually exclusive. The existence of the publishing industry inhibits independent artists.

Re:Not necessarily...

[hairyfeet]

Oh please! Have you heard the fingernails on a chalkboard screeching that Yoko calls "singing"? Nuking her from orbit is the ONLY way to be sure pal, as you sure as hell wouldn't want to get within earshot to make sure she was down.....shudder.

As for TFA, how many big fat checks did the ones in charge get to cash? Bribing elected officials, whether with big fat checks or by offering cushy jobs to them and their families, should be seen as what it is ....treason. And all those that commit treason should be lined up and shot, period. They are a bigger threat to democracy than any nutball with a bomb and a cause, because they cause permanent damage to democracy whereas the nutball's mess can be cleaned up.

Maybe Marx was right, that all capitalist societies will destroy themselves from within. That the greed will eventually because so rank and foul that the people will turn on them. Lenin said a capitalist will sell you the rope you hang him with, and since Citizens United all the obvious bribery here in the states while so many are hurting really makes me wonder if they were right. I had hoped maybe the EU would be a little better off than we are but it looks like the big fat checks cash just as well there.