Copyright Extension Moves To Japan

from the ain't-no-such-thing-as-a-public-domain dept

Looks like the latest battle over copyright extension is about to take place in Japan, where the new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, has vowed to extend certain copyrights. Specifically, he says that posthumous copyrights for compositions should last 70 years, rather than 50. This makes no sense, no matter what basis you judge copyright on. Copyright is supposed to serve a simple purpose: to encourage the creation of new works. It never makes sense to extend copyright on existing works, because those works were already created. In other words, the social "bargain" that was offered in terms of the limited times of protection available were clearly sufficient. But, it's making a pure mockery of the law to specifically single out posthumous copyright protection to be extended because, as far as I know, the dead no longer have any incentives to create new content, no matter how long the copyrights on their old content lasts. The only explanation for doing so is to create a special welfare program for songwriters and composers. But, if that's the case, let's make it clear this is a welfare system, rather than anything to do with copyright.

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Gershwin Heirs Fight Over Copyright Royalties

from the oh-please,-make-it-stop dept

The heirs of George and Ira Gershwin (the famous songwriting brothers) were leaders (right alongside Disney) in the fight for copyright extension a decade ago. They insisted that it wasn't about the money, but about making sure that their work wasn't presented in a way of which they disapproved ("Someone could turn 'Porgy and Bess' into rap music" was the complaint from Mark Gershwin, conveniently ignoring that much of the Gershwin's work pulled concepts from African American music). Yet, if it's not about money, why are the Gershwin heirs suddenly involved in legal battles all about who gets the money?

Copycense points us to the news of a variety of legal battles from the heirs on different sides of the family squabbling over who gets what rights to foreign royalties. Of course, they're fighting over who still gets to make money on songs that were all written prior to 1937 (when George died). When those songs were written, the "promise" copyright gave them would have already put all those songs in the public domain by now. One would think these heirs (none of them actually direct descendants of either George or Ira -- since neither had children) would be thrilled that the government went back on the promise it made to the public and granted them even more monopoly rents for a few more decades and kept quiet. But, apparently, that's not the way these things go.

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EU Approves Copyright Extension, Despite Evidence Of The Harm It Does

from the what-a-shame dept

It's a huge shame, but the EU Parliament has voted to extend copyright on performances from 50 to 70 years despite the fact that this breaks the deal made with the public, goes against the entire purpose of copyright law and has been shown to cause significant harm to the music business. The various member states still need to agree to this individually, but it's ridiculous that it could even get this far. This is a huge boost for some record labels and some big name musicians, who will simply pad their earnings at the expense of new and struggling musicians. If you want a sense of how ridiculous the whole thing is, just read this section of the linked article:

The measure must still be passed by individual countries, and even if this is done by this summer, only recordings made in the 50 years before that point will qualify for the extended copyright.

This means that Sir Cliff [Richard] will lose control of income from his first hit, Move It, as well as from Living Doll, his fourth single, written by Lionel Bart and recorded in late April 1959, which sealed Cliff's place as Britain's answer to Elvis Presley.

This will not necessarily dismay him. Sir Cliff was unavailable for comment yesterday at his holiday retreat in Barbados, but when he travelled to Brussels last year for talks on the proposals he said: "I'm absolutely fed up with singing Living Doll but I have sung it constantly since 1959 because every time I sing it live, it generates sales of the original record and royalties to me."

Poor Cliff Richard. He's at his holiday retreat in the Bahamas, consoling himself over the fact he no longer has to sing a song he hates just to generate royalty checks... but his other songs from 50 years ago will just keep paying off.

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EU Rejects Copyright Extension... For Now

from the good-news dept

Following the recent debates on copyright extension, there's a bit of good news. It appears that the Council of the European Union rejected yet another attempt to extend the copyright on sound recordings from 50 to 95 years. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like this is (by any means) the end of such proposals. In fact, it's been made clear that this rejection is just a step in the process towards copyright extension. Of course, a bunch of recording industry lobbyists are complaining about how unfair this is, but they fail to explain how it could possibly be seen as fair to retroactively change the deal made with the public to take away the public domain. The entire purpose of copyright is to put in place a limited-time monopoly to act as incentive to create new works. Obviously, that incentive worked, or the content wouldn't have been created. Unfortunately, the recording industry now wants people to believe that copyright is some sort of welfare system for musicians, whereby they should continue getting paid for work they did over 50 years ago. It's a total distortion of the purpose of copyright law -- and one that will cost consumers dearly, and pay musicians little, but enrich the recording industry tremendously. Yet, because of some sob stories about how musicians need this, politicians across Europe have been leaping on board.

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Debating Copyright Extension In The UK

from the missing-the-point dept

Shane Richmond, who writes about technology and media for the Telegraph, recently handed over his blog to Martin Kretschmer and Horace Trubrudge for a debate about copyright extension (which is currently being discussed in the UK). Kretschmer is an intellectual property professor who is against copyright extension, while Trubrudge is the Assistant General Secretary of the British Musicians' Union, and (not surprisingly) favors copyright extension. You can read the back and forth as follows:

• Kretschmer: We must not inhibit digital creators :: Shane Richmond
• Trubrudge: I am here to fight the corner of the UK's musicians
• Kretschmer: Musicians should see themselves as part of a continuum of creative endeavour
• Trubrudge: It's time performers' moral rights were strengthened
• Kretschmer: Redistributing from the living to the dead
• Trubrudge: 'What have you got against Cliff Richard'?

Unfortunately, the debate is a bit haphazard and goes all over the place at times. Kretschmer, unfortunately, doesn't do a great job picking the key points for why copyright extension is bad and sticking to them (i.e., the fact that copyright is a deal struck between the public and the creator, and changing that deal at a later date steals from the public). Instead, he focuses on the fact that most of the money will go to the record labels and big name musicians -- which is a worthwhile point, but it leaves it open for Trubrudge to basically say, "so what?" Trubrudge's point is that even if the record labels and some big artists will benefit the most, other musicians will still benefit somewhat, and his job is merely to make sure that those artists benefit. He also pulls out the "moral rights" argument which is a total red herring.

It's too bad the debate went in that direction, as the question of copyright extension is a really important one -- especially considering that it breaks a contract that the public made with musicians on the terms under which that content was created. It also ignores how such extensions limit the ability of new artists to build on older works -- which is a key component to many newer artists creating their own unique works of art. As an example of this, I point (again) to James Boyle's excellent discussion on how Ray Charles invented soul music by effectively "ripping off" other musicians, and how others have then built on Charles' work. Stringent copyright protection at the time may have prevented soul music from ever coming about. There are plenty of similar examples as well -- but unfortunately the debate doesn't seem to touch on that aspect at all.

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Extending Copyright Law Is Like Banning Wikipedia

from the indeed dept

Richard Smith has an interesting post discussing James Boyle's excellent book, The Public Domain, which we've been discussing as well. In his post, though, Smith makes a really good point, comparing the extension of copyright to the banning of Wikipedia. Obviously, that sounds like hyperbole, but he's making a really good point that is often missed in these discussions.

You never see (or think about) what's lost when we create ever more stringent and draconian copyright laws.

Smith points to Boyle's thought experiments on how you would set up a network if given the choice, in 1990, between an open and a closed network. He notes, pretty accurately, that many people would likely freak out about the nature of the open network, recognizing all of the downsides, but rarely the potential upsides of such a network. Instead, they would focus on creating a "protected" network. Luckily, that's not what happened, but no thanks to careful planning. It was mostly an accident of history.

The second experiment would be about creating the best encyclopedia out there:

In a second thought experiment, imagine that it's five years ago and you are responsible for developing the most comprehensive and up-to-the-minute encyclopedia the world has ever seen. One strategy is to create a global company, employ the brightest people available, check every fact produced, and implement the most rigorous editorial controls. A second option is to "just create a website and let anybody put up anything". Again, we'd mostly have opted for the first strategy, and the world wouldn't have Wikipedia.

Once again, Wikipedia is more an accident of history. It was an experiment -- an offshoot of another project to see what would happen. It wasn't well planned out, but it worked.

The problem with copyright law, is that it tries to plan everything out. It focuses on preventing all sorts of potential "bad stuff," but never takes into account all the good stuff that would be allowed through such happy accidents. Strengthening copyright law may try (and likely fail) to prevent "bad stuff" from happening, but it also may cost us the next Wikipedia -- without anyone ever realizing it.

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Gowers Slams Out Of Touch UK Cultural Secretary Over Copyright Extension Plan

from the learn-some-economics dept

Last week, UK Cultural Secretary Andy Burnham laid out a highly questionable argument in favor of copyright extension on performance rights in the UK. The logic he used made little sense, and seemed to be based on a odd belief that musicians had some sort of moral claim on money more than 50 years after they recorded songs -- ignoring plenty of evidence that any extension wouldn't actually benefit most musicians, but would enrich the major record labels.

Now, SteveD points out that Andrew Gowers has responded to Burnham's suggestion and trashed the idea impressively. Gowers, you may recall, is the former Financial Times editor who was asked to explore issues having to do with copyright by the UK government. After spending quite some time researching the issue, he produced the so-called Gowers Report, that explained why copyright extension was a bad idea. Later, Gowers admitted that all of the evidence suggests copyright should actually be much shorter, not longer.

Gowers response to Burnham is worth reading in its entirety, as it skewers pretty much every point that Burnham put forth. Here are just a few tidbits:

As political speeches go, this is pretty silly. A moral case? You might just as well say sportspeople have a moral case to a pension at 30.

Copyright is an economic instrument, not a moral one, and if you consider the economic arguments -- as I did two years ago at the request of Gordon Brown -- you will find that they do not stack up. All the respectable research shows that copyright extension has high costs to the public and negligible benefits for the creative community.

Consumers find themselves paying more for old works or unable to access "orphan works" where copyright ownership is unclear. Small businesses that play recorded music such as hairdressing salons and local radio stations face a hidden extra "tax" in the form of higher music-licence fees. Do they really need this at this time?

Mr Burnham will no doubt find such arguments uncool. But even on his terms, the case for extension does not work. Twenty years' extra earning power in 50 years' time does nothing to put more money in the pockets of struggling performers now: two thirds of lifetime income from an average compact disc comes in the first six years after release.

And it will not alter the incentives for creation one jot. As Dave Rowntree, Blur's drummer, told my review: "I have never heard of a single band deciding not to record a song because it will fall out of copyright in only 50 years. The idea is laughable."

The rest of it is worth reading as well, and near the end he puts in a key point, addressed to the music labels: "Please focus on innovation, not on trying to eke more rent from the successes of yesteryear." Indeed.

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UK Culture Secretary Pushes Copyright Extension With Questionable Logic

from the can-I-get-paid-the-rest-of-my-life-please? dept

SteveD points us to the full text of a speech given by UK Cultural Secretary Andy Burnham, pushing for copyright extension on performance rights. The speech itself is interesting, in that Burnham at least pays some tribute to other ideas, even quoting John Perry Barlow on the nature of information. However, there are still plenty of troublesome (or downright incorrect) statements in the speech. Even though he kicks it off by saying that the government generally should stay out of the music business, he then goes on to mostly ignore that:

But, the truth is, government intervention in the music business does not have a glorious history. To paraphrase one of our greats, mixing pop and politics is not a straightforward business and, indeed, can be a bit embarrassing for all concerned.

The British music business has been a major success story with government at arm's length, or further - in something of a state of mutual distrust.

Over the second half of the last century the industry grew into one of real economic and cultural significance -- and its output for many defined us internationally -- yet without significant government intervention or political help.

But I'm going to make the case this morning that necessity means that the old order of things needs to change.

You would think, having admitted that when the industry has been successful without intervention and admitting that when the gov't does get involved, things tend to get messed up, he'd have a pretty rock solid reason for saying it's time to change. But he doesn't. His focus seems to be on the fact that musicians need to get paid for every song listened to -- which is simply not true. That may be the way things worked in the past (actually, that's not true -- because most record labels never handed that money over to musicians, but...), but plenty of musicians have figured out other ways of getting paid. Burnham seems to ignore all that, and posits the fallacy that if musicians don't get paid from each use of a recorded song, they don't get paid at all.

While he talks about new and innovative business models that can come about due to the internet, he then makes the mistake that all music industry business models must be based on copyright:

Copyright underpins the music business -- and all our creative industries -- and the right response when it's put under pressure is not to abandon a system as outdated, but to make it work better.

And then he goes for the "moral" angle, which makes very little sense:

There is a moral case for performers benefiting from their work throughout their entire lifetime.

There are numerous problems with this sentence. First of all, no one has ever said that performers don't benefit from their work throughout their lifetimes, even if they're not paid for every single use. But they should be the ones who set up how they benefit -- not the government. If I performed on a hit song in the 60s, there are plenty of ways to benefit: such as by convincing others to hire me by noting "Hey, look, I played the guitar on this number one hit from 1968..." or whatever.

But, Burnham is making a totally fallacious argument: that if you're not getting paid directly and repeatedly for the work, then there's some sort of moral code broken. On that, I think many people would disagree. Most folks get paid for their work once. They don't continue to get paid directly for it throughout their lifetimes. They're expected to keep working, and to save money so that eventually they can retire. Why should things be any different for performers?

And, the worst part is that Burnham leaves out the truly "moral" question of copyright extension: that it's taking content away from the public domain. The musicians who recorded performances fifty years ago entered into a deal with the public -- the public that Burnham is supposed to be representing, though he seems to think he represents the artists. They would perform the music and retain exclusive rights over it for 50 years. Then it goes into the public domain. To retroactively and unilaterally change that deal is completely unfair to everyone. It's saying that a deal that was entered into fifty years ago can be ignored and changed to benefit a single party against every other person. How is that possibly moral?

There's a lot more in the speech that is equally troubling, but it's just repeating the same old talking points. The speech also ignores the research that has shown that copyright extension won't actually give very much to the musicians, but will dump millions into the coffers of the big record labels. It's not surprising, because we've heard this before, but it's a speech that ignores reality and paints a fantasy picture of both what's happening in the industry and the entire purpose of copyright law.

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Once More, With Feeling: Copyright Is Not A Welfare System For Musicians

from the how-many-times-does-it-need-to-be-repeated? dept

The purpose of copyright is clear: it's to provide an incentive for the creation of new content. As such, it makes absolutely no sense to ever retroactively extend any sort of copyright. The government, backed by citizens, made a deal with content creators: you create content and we give you a monopoly for x number of years -- and clearly that deal was considered fair by the content creators, or they wouldn't have agreed to it and created the content. To go back and change the terms of the deal at a later date is unfair to everyone. It's renegotiating a deal against citizens' best interests. It's as if you bought a car for a price you negotiated, and three years later, the car company comes back to you and says that you need to pay more, because they, alone, decided that they didn't make enough off of you. Even worse, they get the government to force you to pay, saying that you need to do so.

Sounds ridiculous, right? But that's exactly what's happening with copyright extension in the UK.

We've covered this before. Performance rights in the UK only last 50 years, so music performed in the 60s has started to move into the public domain, and some musicians are freaking out. They first tried to push for an extension using some famous musicians, like Cliff Richards and Ringo Starr, but later realized that people didn't have any sympathy for aging millionaire rockers, demanding more money. So, after that proposal failed, they switched tactics, talking about how poor studio musicians needed copyright extension as a form of welfare.

This argument is incorrect for a variety of reasons. First of all, copyright was never intended to be a welfare system. Studio musicians knew the terms of the deal, and if they chose to rely on earnings from a single performance in 1958 for 50 years, it's difficult to see why the government should bail them out for their own short-sighted thinking, and their decision to live off of a single performance for all those years. If they performed regularly for many years, then they should still be earning plenty off of royalties from songs they recorded less than 50 years ago, so it's difficult to see what the problem is. And, of course, the whole thing about poor studio musicians is mostly a myth. A recent study showed that if performance copyrights were extended, the vast majority of the money generated would go to major record labels, and not to these studio musicians. At best, most studio musicians would earn less than 27 euros per year from the extension.

But, of course, that won't stop the propaganda fueled by the record labels who stand to make a nice, totally unearned, profit from an extension. They've put together a video of these "poor studio musicians" begging the government for a handout. They don't even try to disguise it, admitting that they're asking the government to "show a little gratitude." So, basically, you have musicians who made a fair deal fifty years ago, now being manipulated by the record labels who apparently didn't pay them enough for their session work when it occurred, asking for a handout at the expense of everyone else. The UK government should reject this blatant and unfair renegotiation of terms, and tell the musicians if they want to ask someone for a handout, why not turn to the record labels who apparently didn't pay them enough in the first place.

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Copyright Extension In Europe Will Only Make Musicians A Tiny Amount Of Money; But Will Cost Consumers

from the protecting-the-artists? dept

When the EU ignored tons of evidence and the very purpose of copyright in announcing plans to extend performance copyrights from 50 to 95 years, the politicians who supported this proposal (of course) insisted that they were doing so to benefit the artists who most needed it, such as the session musicians, rather than the big stars -- basically admitting that they were viewing copyright as a sort of welfare system for musicians (despite the fact that copyright is designed for a totally different purpose).

While this ignores the fact that many session musicians are paid a flat fee for their efforts and don't retain copyrights, a group has found even more damning evidence against the plan to extend copyrights. Using the very numbers that were relied on by the European Commission to push this plan, the Open Rights Group notes that most musicians would earn almost nothing from the extensions -- with 80% of the musicians getting less than 27 euros per year.

You know who would benefit though? You guessed it! The recording industry. Record labels would likely bring in millions of euros thanks solely to the extensions. And who would be harmed? Yup. Consumers. So, consumers are harmed, musicians aren't really helped, but the recording industry makes out like bandits. Is anyone really surprised?

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Professor Slams European Commission For Ignoring The Evidence On Copyright Extension

from the it's-not-about-evidence,-it's-about-campaign-contributions dept

We were pretty surprised a few weeks back when the European Commission endorsed a plan for copyright extension, despite ample evidence that retroactive copyright extension is a bad idea. Soon after that announcement, a group of European academics sent a letter warning that such extension would harm innovation. The academics keep piling on, as Professor Bernt Hugenholtz, the director of the University of Amsterdam's Institute for Information Law (IViR) has sent an open letter to the Commission blasting them for ignoring all of the research showing that copyright extension is bad. Specifically, Hugenholtz is amazed that the Commission relied only on reports prepared by industry, and willfully ignored research prepared by independent academics, such as his own group, claiming that by ignoring such studies, the Commission has a clear intention to mislead the rest of the EU by hiding the research that shows why copyright extension is a bad idea.

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European Intellectual Property Scholars: Copyright Extension Harms Innovation

from the good-for-them dept

Following the EU's misguided proposal to extend performance copyrights on songs from 50 years to 95 years, a group of professors from intellectual property, legal and innovation positions, have gotten together to send a highly critical letter, pointing out why such a copyright extension is not necessary and, in fact, will be quite harmful. Here's a snippet of the letter:

Unanimously, the European centres for intellectual property research have opposed the proposal. The empirical evidence has been summarised succinctly in at least three studies: the Cambridge Study for the UK Gowers Review of 2006; a study conducted by the Amsterdam Institute for Information Law for the Commission itself (2006); and the Bournemouth University statement signed by 50 leading academics in June 2008.

The simple truth is that copyright extension benefits most those who already hold rights. It benefits incumbent holders of major back-catalogues, be they record companies, ageing rock stars or, increasingly, artists' estates. It does nothing for innovation and creativity. The proposed Term Extension Directive undermines the credibility of the copyright system. It will further alienate a younger generation that, justifiably, fails to see a principled basis.

Hopefully, European politicians will actually pay attention to this condemnation of the proposed extension.

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EU Plans To Extend Copyright; Turns Copyright System Into Welfare For Musicians

from the what-a-shame dept

Just as we feared, the EU has now approved copyright extension of performance royalties from 50 years to 95 years. This is basically an approval to steal from the public. The public made a deal with musicians 50 years ago: give us music, and we'll give you performance royalties for 50 years. The musicians accepted that, and it was a worthwhile deal for them. Yet, now, the government has decided to change the deal, remove that content from the public domain and give it to the musicians for another 45 years. This is, simply, bad policy. It encourages the exact wrong behavior: telling people that the public will pay them for work they did many many years ago over and over again. This doesn't encourage musicians to continue working and it doesn't encourage them to be fiscally responsible and save for retirement or anything.

At the same time, (again as expected), the EU has said that royalties collecting agencies need to compete, like they do in the US. As we noted a few weeks ago, this is better than forcing all artists to be represented by a single agency, but these agencies tend to do things in the name of artists that can be a lot more damaging than helpful in the long run.

These changes still require approval from the individual EU countries and the EU Parliament, so there's still some chance that folks in Europe will realize that extending copyright on already created works is a bad idea, but that seems unlikely at this point.

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UK Government May Extend Copyright, Despite Saying It Wouldn't

from the well,-how-about-that dept

Back in 2006, you may recall that the UK released the so-called Gowers' Report, which was a look into various issues having to do with copyright law in the UK. I pointed out, at the time, that the report was too balanced for its own good, focusing on how to "balance" one side's views against the other's -- without recognizing there could be paths that made everyone better off. The one thing it got sort of right, was in making it quite clear that extending the length of copyright was a bad, bad idea and totally unnecessary. In fact, Gowers later admitted that he toned down the report, since the actual evidence he found suggested that things would be better if copyright length were shortened -- but he knew suggesting that would lead to screams of outrage from the industry.

At first, it appeared the government was going to accept this reasoning, and rejected the idea of extending copyright on performances. However, these sorts of things are never over when it comes the recording industry's lobbying efforts -- and some believe that they've convinced the government to change its mind and revisit copyright extension. How? By playing the sympathy card, focusing on the fact that "performers who were reaching retirement were being deprived of revenue from popular recordings, just when they need the money the most."

This is the "welfare" argument. It's the argument that copyright is some sort of welfare system designed to keep paying musicians for a single performance they did 50 plus years ago. Unfortunately, that's not what copyright is for. It is merely an incentive for the creation of content. If that copyright was enough to get the musicians to perform 50 years ago, then it served its purpose. Extending the copyright after the fact makes absolutely no sense. The fact that some musicians won't still be getting royalties from these performances seems meaningless. They knew the terms of the deal when they did it: they got royalties for 50 years. They had 50 years to save money and do other work to build a nest egg -- just like every other worker in the world. What they're basically asking for is the equivalent of any normal worker going back to his employer from 50 years ago and demanding an additional salary for that work. There is simply no reason to support such efforts.

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The Real Cost Of Copyright Extension In Korea: $170 Million

from the ouch dept

Earlier this year, we pointed out how ridiculous it was that the US was forcing South Korea to extend the length of copyright in the name of free trade agreements. After all, copyright is the opposite of free trade -- it's about monopoly protectionism, and that's very costly. Now we actually have an idea of just how costly. William Patry writes about the history of copyright extension, highlighting how it's really just a game of leapfrog, where Big Copyright holders use the differences in copyright law to continually extend it out further and further -- completely going against the purpose of copyright law. However, the real key to Patry's writeup is to point to a report from South Korea talking about just how much damage copyright extension is doing to local publishers. That's quite a statement, since copyright extension supporters always talk about how it's designed to help publishers. Not so. Publishers are complaining that the new rules will limit how many books they can publish, and the government is being forced to hand over approximately $170 million to keep the publishers happy. So, for all the talk of how copyright extension is necessary to protect the publishing industry, in South Korea, it seems to be costing taxpayers at least $170 million -- while making sure that fewer books are published. How is that possibly aligned with the stated purpose of copyright to encourage more content creation?

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Japan Is The Latest Country To Explore Copyright Term Extension

from the the-Disney-clause dept

William Patry points us to an article covering the debate going on in Japan about whether or not the country should extend copyright terms to life plus 70 years, rather than life plus 50 years. If this sounds familiar, it's because plenty of other countries, including the UK, have recently gone through similar debates. The problem is that in the 90s Disney freaked out that the copyright on Mickey Mouse was going to go into the public domain. So, it pushed for Congress (via Sonny Bono) to extend copyrights out an extra 20 years. This made very little sense. After all, the purpose of copyrights is to create an incentive for the creation of new works. If the incentive is sufficient at the time of creation, then clearly it worked. There is no reason to then extend that incentive long after it succeeded -- other than if you incorrectly believe that copyright is actually a welfare system for content creators. As the article points out, does anyone really believe that some people will only create content if they know it will be protected to 70 years past their death rather than 50? And, if that's true, then why don't the laws only protect newly created content? The content that was already created was created under the bargain that it was life plus 50. It would appear to be a violation of the pact that was made with the public (who give up the content from the public domain) to change those terms after the fact.

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Canadian Public Domain Not Good Enough For German Publisher

from the this-is-not-the-public-domain-you-were-looking-for dept

It's no secret that different countries have different lengths for copyright. That's why there are constant debates over copyright extension, as countries with shorter terms for copyright are pressured by those with longer terms to extend (or, better yet, to leapfrog) copyright terms. Otherwise, you end up with the situation where content in one country is in the public domain, while it's still under copyright elsewhere. In the age of the internet, where borders are somewhat meaningless online, that's going to cause some problems. Witness the situation with the International Music Score Library Project, a wiki-based project in Canada, for publishing public domain music scores online. The site was careful about copyright, making sure that the only content published was in the public domain. Since the site is based in Canada, it focused on Canadian copyright law and what was in the public domain in that country. Apparently, that was seen as problematic to a German publisher, Universal Edition AG, who found that some of the musical scores that are in the public domain in Canada are still under copyright in Germany. Universal Edition then hired a Toronto law firm to send a cease and desist letter, that caused the entire site to be taken down. Yes, even though all of the content was perfectly legal under Canadian law, this German publisher was able to get it taken offline because some of the content was still under copyright in Europe. If this type of thing is allowed to stand, then we reach a point where all copyright online automatically is covered by the absolute most draconian and stringent levels of copyright law, no matter what the law is anywhere else. That doesn't seem either reasonable or fair.

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UK Gov't Recognizes That Songs Performed 50 Years Ago Don't Need Any Additional Incentive To Get Recorded

from the good-for-them dept

Last December, the UK gov't had some folks draw up the so-called "Gowers Report" looking at the question of copyright extension. While the report wasn't great, it certainly did recommend against copyright extension. It appears that the folks in the gov't saw through the online petition many dead musicians signed asking the gov't to ignore the report. That is, the UK gov't has in fact rejected the idea of extending copyrights for performance royalties on songs, so that those recorded 50 years ago no longer have to pay the performers (though, they do still have to pay the songwriters, who have longer copyright protection). Some musicians are up in arms about this, but that's only because they seem to think that copyright is a type of welfare system to support artists based on a single performance they did 50 years ago. It's not. Copyright's sole purpose is to create incentives to have that content created. If the content was created, then clearly the deal that the copyright offered was sufficient. Extending the deal afterwards makes no sense and goes against the very idea of copyright. It's saying that a song that was performed and recorded 50 years ago needs new incentives to have been performed and recorded 50 years ago. It's nice to see (for one of the first times) a gov't finally reject that argument.

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