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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."
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
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.
Europe is batshit insane anyway with "artists".
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. Each and every time (may be just Germany, or EU wide).
They totally bought into the arteeest mythos and bullshit.
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!
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.
Art is an investment. You typically do the work up front for free, and then you hope to make the money back selling copies for years to come. The problem here is that it's not the artists that own the rights, it's the labels, and the labels don't do jack shit to earn their money in most cases, or at least not in proportion to the amount they invest. It's not uncommon for them to place all the risk on the group and then pocket nearly all the proceeds of the album sales.
Going much beyond 50 years is a travesty. There is some incentive to be had from 50 years, many artists hope to be able to provide for their family for a period after their death, and extending copyright doesn't guarantee income.