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

[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

[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

[_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.

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.