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 Post subject: Clock ticking for '60s artists on battle to extend European copyrights
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2007 12:53 pm 
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http://www.nme.com/news/paul-mccartney/28382

>> Musicians 'must keep copyright'

The House Of Commons culture committee has declared that artists have a "moral right" to keep control of their creations while alive.

Paul McCartney and Cliff Richard are among the artists who will see the current 50-year limit on their early sound recordings expire soon.

They recommended that the copyright term for sound recordings should be extended to at least 70 years. This would allow ageing performers to continue to benefit from their early recordings throughout their lifetimes.

Over the next decade some 7,000 people - including backing singers and musicians - will lose royalties from recordings made in the late 1950s and 1960s, the MPs report said.

The report stated: "We have not heard a convincing reason why a composer and his or her heirs should benefit from a term of copyright which extends for lifetime and beyond, but a performer should not."

In the US, performers keep copyright for 95 years after the song has been released, while the level is 70 years in Australia.

They added: "We recommended that the government should press the European Commission to bring forward proposals for an extension of copyright term for sound recordings to at least 70 years," reports BBC News.

The BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor said: "We urge the government to respond positively to the select committee and now make the case in Europe for fair copyright protection for British performers and record companies."

Several organisations oppose the move, including the Libraries and Archives Copyright Alliance, who told the committee it would "massively upset the balance between right holders and users". <<

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 Post subject: Clock ticking for '60s artists on battle to extend European copyrights
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2007 1:27 pm 
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I don't think the rights to a composition or recording should ever expire. Those rights should be viewed like any other asset and should be transferred to the artist or composer's heirs!

In so far as record companies actually own most artists' recordings, I'm not clear what ths article means by "In the US, performers keep copyright for 95 years after the song has been released." I guess that means they receive royalties for that long, but they sure don't have control over the recordings per se.


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 Post subject: Clock ticking for '60s artists on battle to extend European copyrights
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2007 2:27 pm 
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Jon Tyler wrote:
I don't think the rights to a composition or recording should ever expire. Those rights should be viewed like any other asset and should be transferred to the artist or composer's heirs!


I have to respectfully disagree. Why should someone inherit the right to charge the public for listening to his great-great-grandfather play a tune on the piano? So-called 'intellectual property' really isn't 100% analogous to tangible assets.

Just one person's view....

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 Post subject: Clock ticking for '60s artists on battle to extend European copyrights
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2007 4:31 pm 
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Spiderboy wrote:
Jon Tyler wrote:
I don't think the rights to a composition or recording should ever expire. Those rights should be viewed like any other asset and should be transferred to the artist or composer's heirs!


I have to respectfully disagree. Why should someone inherit the right to charge the public for listening to his great-great-grandfather play a tune on the piano? So-called 'intellectual property' really isn't 100% analogous to tangible assets.

Just one person's view....


Agree :ohyes:


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 Post subject: Clock ticking for '60s artists on battle to extend European copyrights
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2007 5:14 pm 
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Spiderboy wrote:
Jon Tyler wrote:
I don't think the rights to a composition or recording should ever expire. Those rights should be viewed like any other asset and should be transferred to the artist or composer's heirs!


I have to respectfully disagree. Why should someone inherit the right to charge the public for listening to his great-great-grandfather play a tune on the piano? So-called 'intellectual property' really isn't 100% analogous to tangible assets.

Just one person's view....


Keep in mind that a composition can be in the public domain while a recording of that song is not. The fact that there are two different copyrights involved makes these issues especially confusing (and I don't profess to understand them very well) so correct me if I'm wrong...

This article is NOT about the copyrights on the compositions themselves. It's about the copyright on the recordings. Unfortunately, the article doesn't explain very thoroughly what it means when the copyright on a recording expires. I am fairly sure that those recordings do not become public domain after that. I think it just means that different people will be pocketing the profits from the sale of the recordings (and the artist who recorded it will not be one of them.)

According to PDInfo.com, "There are no sound recordings in the Public Domain in the USA. If you need a sound recording - even a recording of a public domain song - you will either have to record it yourself or license one." (I'm not clear if this means that sound recordings never pass into the public domain or if it means that no existing recording is old enough to have done so yet.) I'm assuming the former.

So, if you wish to hear a recording of my "great-great-grandfather playing a tune on the piano," you will still have to pay a record company in order to hear it! (You won't need to pay a publisher, but you'll still need to pay a record company!)

More often than not, recording artists don't get paid to make recordings. They pay to make them. Their income is based on a royalty payment (which is a percentage of the total sales of that recording.) Why shouldn't an artist continue to earn his percentage, as long as a record company is selling those recordings? If he dies at a young age, shouldn't his heirs continue to earn that income? Why should there be a time limit on his earnings? (There's no limit on how long a record company can sell a recording, is there?)

To me, being a recording artist is the same as being a stockholder in a company. The income is based on a percentage of some profit. When I die, I can pass my stocks along to my heirs, even if I'm 120 years old when I die.. Why shouldn't royalty payments be passed along also?

(In the early days, many artists were paid flat fees for recording with no royalties, so that is a different situation altogether.)


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 Post subject: Clock ticking for '60s artists on battle to extend European copyrights
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2007 5:28 pm 
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Spiderboy wrote:
Jon Tyler wrote:
I don't think the rights to a composition or recording should ever expire. Those rights should be viewed like any other asset and should be transferred to the artist or composer's heirs!


I have to respectfully disagree. Why should someone inherit the right to charge the public for listening to his great-great-grandfather play a tune on the piano? So-called 'intellectual property' really isn't 100% analogous to tangible assets.


Absolutely right. If you parents die and leave you a big house and loads of money, fair enough. But your parents, <i>because they are DEAD,</i> do not continue to work and add to your "pot." But that's what you're asking them to do, in essence, by viewing copyrights as unending. Exploiting the dead should probably be left for society's benefit!

The absurd length of copyright protection is one of the reasons that record labels do not think long-term and invest in artists who might one day be seen as the 21st century corrolaries to the Beatles or Dylan or Elvis. It's cheaper, and more effective in the short run, to push a Britney Spears or Jessica Simpson whom few will care about in a decade or less. Of course, the downside to this is that this generation will also not have its equivalent of a time-stopping back catalog of genius from its early days to draw on. As baby boomers age, and Beatles (et al) sales slowly diminish, labels have realized that they have paltry back catalogs from (say, the 1980's) to replace them. As big as Prince or U2 or REM or Springsteen may have been, they never captured the public imagination in the same amazing way that the Beatles or Elvis or many others did - but they did in a much bigger way than their equivalents in the 1990's. This is a big part of why ALL of the big labels are in MASSIVE trouble. Absurd copyright protection means those who profit from them (and these are typically big corporations, not the loving families of the creators) get to rest on their laurels.

There are plenty of articles which expound upon the many ways that shorter copyright terms benefit all of society. Few folks with any knowledge of the subject would suggest that they be extended, except for those with a grotesque self-interest in the matter. And these folks tend to be the Disneys and Sonys of the world who seek to expand their hegemony, not sweet ol' families. If you're against the McDonaldization of the planet, I can't imagine why you'd be for copyright extension.

I'd never cite Wikipedia as a factual source, but the passage below is both truthful and telling - I find it compelling that Disney, who are at the forefront of bodies pushing for copyright extension, is doing so to (partially) extend copyrights on works it itself took from the public domain - and that a very relevant government official publically acknowledges this mistake:

<i>Recent works that have entered the popular culture, and for which copyright is arguably not appropriate, include the novels that created Frankenstein and Dracula, both originating in the 19th century. Most of the holy writings of major religions are also in the public domain, which allows them to be adapted, translated, paraphrased and otherwise made suitable to modern audiences. If the Roman Catholic Church had a perpetual copyright on the letters of the Apostle Paul, the four Gospels, the Book of Revelation and the letters of James, Peter, John, Jude and the anonymous author of the Book of Hebrews, it could have refused to license them for translation, or for use by other churches. Many of Disney's most famous feature movies have themselves been derivatives of public domain works; for example, its film The Jungle Book was created only seven years after the copyright on the book expired in the United States.
On November 2, 2005, the United States Register of Copyrights, Marybeth Peters, stated in a symposium on intellectual property at the University of North Carolina law school that, "We've certainly lengthened the term [of copyright] perhaps — I won't even say perhaps — too long a term. I think it is too long. I think that was probably a big mistake, but one that Congress can make."</i>


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 Post subject: Clock ticking for '60s artists on battle to extend European copyrights
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2007 6:30 pm 
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I think that copyright on recorded performances should be treated differently for the benefit of the public. Public domain films are treated very poorly, because the rightful holder of the film elements has little or no incentive to use or maintain them properly when any Joe Schmoe can put out his or her own version. Thus, we get a bunch of bad public domain versions of films like "One-Eyed Jacks" but no quality version from Paramount.

The same will happen with our beloved musical recordings. The record companies that hold the master tapes won't bother reissuing public domain material, so our only source will be low quality dubs put out by PD specialists.

Jay

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 Post subject: Clock ticking for '60s artists on battle to extend European copyrights
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2007 8:43 pm 
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I do agree with Jon Tyler that this is a complicated subject, and I am not 100% certain I fully understand it either, but here is what I believe the situation to be.

The copyright in a sound recording, as opposed to the music itself, entitles the owner to payment whenever that sound recording is "used". If someone plays it on the air, uses it in a movie, etc. a fee goes to owner(s). If and when that right expired, there would not - as Jon suggested - be someone else collecting the royalties. If it worked like that I would have to agree with the view that those right are best passed on to one's heirs. But since that is not how it works, I stand by my previous position.

My wife was faced with this situation when she tried to use the Carole King version of "Up on the Roof" in a (very low budget) film she was making. Carole King was more than happy to give her the rights to use her composition, but the record company, which owned the rights to the performance would not budge - insisting on a prohibitive fee. That is indeed their right, under our current copyright laws, but there's no reason it should be a perpetual right. Fifty years sounds like more than enought to me.

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 Post subject: Clock ticking for '60s artists on battle to extend European copyrights
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2007 9:43 pm 
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Spiderboy wrote:
I do agree with Jon Tyler that this is a complicated subject, and I am not 100% certain I fully understand it either, but here is what I believe the situation to be.

The copyright in a sound recording, as opposed to the music itself, entitles the owner to payment whenever that sound recording is "used". If someone plays it on the air, uses it in a movie, etc. a fee goes to owner(s). If and when that right expired, there would not - as Jon suggested - be someone else collecting the royalties. If it worked like that I would have to agree with the view that those right are best passed on to one's heirs. But since that is not how it works, I stand by my previous position.

My wife was faced with this situation when she tried to use the Carole King version of "Up on the Roof" in a (very low budget) film she was making. Carole King was more than happy to give her the rights to use her composition, but the record company, which owned the rights to the performance would not budge - insisting on a prohibitive fee. That is indeed their right, under our current copyright laws, but there's no reason it should be a perpetual right. Fifty years sounds like more than enought to me.


I did a bit more research and found out that, when the copyrights expire, the recordings in question DO go into the public domain. So, as Spiderboy said, no one will be collecting royalties. Record companies will be free to sell the recordings ad nauseum and will not have to pay the artists a penny.

So, if the laws remain as they are, the UK will soon have a bunch of recordings in the PD that are still copyrighted here in the US. (Watch the RIAA call for the ban of imports at that point!) Not to mention the fact that people will legally post PD recordings on the web and people in other countries (where the songs are not yet PD) will be able to download them. What a mess and you better believe the RIAA will be crying piracy to get some attention!

I discovered that the reason that no US recordings are PD yet is because none are old enough yet. The earliest that copyright protection will expire for any sounding recording in the USA is 2067. At that point, all recordings made in 1972 and earlier go into the public domain. Thereafter, any recording will become PD after 95 years.

Keep in mind that I despise the RIAA more than anyone else, but I do understand how recording artists get paid and I hate to see them screwed out of any more than they are already screwed out of by the RIAA itself.

Musicians don't get paid a salary for making recordings. In fact, they pay for recording costs and then recoup their costs and hopefully make some profit based on the sales of that recording. I would imagine that some recordings never turn a profit for an artist for decades. I see no reason to place a time limit on that artist's income.


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 Post subject: Clock ticking for '60s artists on battle to extend European copyrights
PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2007 8:06 am 
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Here's another way to think about this:

A sound recording, as opposed to the words, music, or other intangible property of a work of art, does indeed have a permanent (hopefully!) physical aspect. It could be analogue patterns of magnetism on a tape or - much more commonly today - digital coding in some electronic medium or other.

The rights to use that sound recording in various ways and who is paid for that use is what's at issue here. Once copyright is expired, no one needs to pay to use a sound recording; I think this much is clear. So someone could play a record on the radio, use it as background in a TV show or movie, etc. without paying the owner. I suppose you could also sell copies of the original recording without running afoul of the law, and since - in this digital age - the copies would be as good as the originals, I am guessing that this is the aspect that is upsetting certain folks the most.

While the copyright is still in force there are various "charges" for using the sound recording in the ways I cited earlier as well as any other possible use. These payments (royalties) all go to the copyright owner, and rarely, if ever, directly to the artists whose work is captured on the sound recording in question. Whether those artists then receive a cut of the royalties is strictly a function of the terms under which they were hired. A session musician may receive a flat fee for his/her work and never see another nickel. The producer, engineer, etc. are all "employees". Unless they're able to negotiate it in advance, they don't get a cut of royalties either. Whether the featured artist gets anything is also a function of their contract. Remember the Beatles' original deal with Parlophone? I think they got a fraction of a penny for each record sold or something like that. Things are better today, I suspect, but the essential fact that the real clout remains with the owners of the sound recording has not changed.

So extending copyright - more than anything else - extends the right of the record companies to receive royalties on the use of their recordings. They can still sell all the records the public is willing to buy in any form that exists (MP3 files, 45 rpm records, whatever...), but they can't collect a fee for someone using that recording. Nor can they stop someone else from selling their own copies of these recordings.

A fifty-year monopoly must have sounded reasonable when the original UK laws were passed. Aside from corporate greed, I don't see any justification for extending it.

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