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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."
Keep copyright where it belongs: a regulation on businesses. It makes no difference what the term is if they leave home users alone.
Palm trees and 8
Yes, we must redouble our efforts to incentivise John Lennon to produce more new music.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Just get a job like the rest of us
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
He evidentially has run out of money. Should we be sad or disgusted at him? I vote for disgusted.
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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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?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
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.
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
I mean, really? What is the effing point of this?
The point of copyright is (or rather, was supposed to be) to grant the creator of a work a time-limited exclusivity on the right to copy that work, so that they could easily publish the work and reap the benefits of that publication (while society also reaps the benefits of the new work being published) without the fear that somebody else might usurp it from them, which might otherwise keep them from publicly releasing their work, and thus depriving society of an artistic creation. If it takes you 70 years to accomplish this, however, or even fifty... heck, arguably anything more than 20, then maybe... just maybe, you're just too effing slow.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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 70 to 90 years with life-supported rockers expressing their delight."
(Slashdot 2031)
"Sum Ergo Cogito"
Good. I was worried about having to take Ringo or Paul in when thy ended up penniless on the street. Being a fan, I couldn't let that happen to them, but we don't really have a lot os space for permanent house guests.
We should shorten the copyright term to around 14 years...
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2007/07/research-optimal-copyright-term-is-14-years.ars
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
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.
If this is being done because people are seeing their income drop after 50 years, then I think they deserved the wake up call that everything they've done for the last 50 years is worthless crap, and maybe they should have learned to save some cash for retirement.
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!
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.
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...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Racist? Come on buddy, do you even know what racism is? Irrational horseshit claims of racism for any remark about a nationality is the number one indicator of being a whiny bastard. Insensitive, sure. Racist? Hardly. Racist would be saying that the radiation from the nukes probably made them in to the inferior sub-human creatures they are today.
Racism is so overplayed.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
... 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.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
"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
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!
The works protected by copyright were typically owned by the aristocrats. Works protected by patents were typically owned by artisans and blue collar workers, historically speaking. No wonder copyright got better treatment than patents.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
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.
That would be confusing. 0/0 is not infinity. 0/0 is undefined.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
Stealing things that are public domain to make them their property? This explain it better.
Accountants try to write us d-d-down,
Just because royalties can still be found
Copyrights keep us sustained,
I hope we die before we go public domain
"I tried to sleep my way to the top, but my alarm clock always wakes me right up" - TMBG
For most people in the world, 8 IS infinity.
And for lots of people 6 is a good enough approximation of infinity.
The beatles are in the top 10 artists on last.fm and that's usually the case in most most music charts that account for all music and not just current releases. Apple certainly wanted to strike a deal to get the Beatles on iTunes so there must be money there. I think it's more the point that the Beatles aren't exactly scraping by and if Please, Please Me went public domain I don't think Paul is going to have to suck dick just to get a warm meal and if Disney really has nothing better than mickey mouse to keep them going then maybe they should go away.
Whether they like it or not things have to go back into the public domain.
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.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Without a label, how does a recording artist promote his or her music to people who don't listen to Internet radio?
Perform works live. Get your fans (who like your stuff) to convince their friends to like your stuff. Drop some recordings on Youtube, iTunes, or any other distribution network you can get your hands on.
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?*
They can't, but neither can a 'recognized music publisher' protect you from that sort of thing. Your options if accused of plagiarism are:
1. Give the accuser a cut.
2. Cease & desist like they asked.
3. Go to court, especially if they don't sound at all similar.
Continue making new music throughout your adult life. If you're a musician, that should be what you want to be doing anyways.
Until physical disability keeps you from playing your instrument competently. Arthritis, vocal polyps, etc.
Physical disability doesn't completely shut down a musician (e.g. Beethoven or Stevie Wonder). Age doesn't really stop 'em either - Paul McCartney is still performing in his late 60's. In any event, if they're really concerned about that problem, they can get disability insurance like the rest of us.
I am officially gone from
But you see this doesn't make the recording companies any money. Do you really think the government gives a crap about the artist even if they are multimillionaires where there are companies that rake in billions.
Time to offend someone
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Would you by any chance be white?
Lol! Now that's racist.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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.
Just keep moving the goal posts.
The laws were never for your benefit, silly!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
So yes, they stole from me and you and everyone else on the planet and gave what they stole to corporate interests that probably had no part in producing the art in the first place. In the public domain means I can copy, record make derivative works from and do anything I can think of with that art that is in the public domain. None of that is allowed under copyright so just because a work is available somewhere in some form is not equivalent to the public domain in any sense at all. Without the public domain, there would be no raw material for artists to build on to create new art. The public domain is an essential part of our culture and when it stolen like this we are all poorer because we lose the art that would have been created based on that public domain work. It is wrong, it is theft and the EU should be ashamed of itself.
Disclaimer: I'm musician and once I recorded bunch of pieces which took about 2 years of my life (real instruments, real voice, real mixing). Yeah, I'm perfectionist, sue me. They're released under CC now.
Sorry, but you are wrong and you can claim us as enemies as much as you want - you *don't* have any God/Nature/whatever given rights to profit. You have to earn it. Can't do it as performer or musician, you're not good enough, not lucky enough - sorry, but that's life. That's how things IS for rest of us. Why you should be different, huh? Why people who contributions are really worthy to public releases their copyrighted works under CC or PD or allow share non-commercially? Not all they earn big bucks. So tell me? Maybe they admit that music is just for their hearts, that it's not necessary to bring them profit?
For song and movie it is quite clear that even 20 years from publishing is way too much, but I could live with that. Tell me how many songs have gained creds for their owners after 20 years? Several performers comes into mind, all swimming in money already earned from these songs.
These extensions are not for performers, they're not for authors - they are for companies so they can claim that song is actually their property (according to law, it's not) and so they can tell shareholders - hey, we have billions worth of property, invest in us.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!