EU votes tomorrow on copyright term extension: act now!

It's down to the wire for copyright term extension in Europe: the EuroParl votes tomorrow morning on whether sound recordings are going to get extra decades of copyright. This, after all the actual economic and policy experts have weighed in to say that this won't generate any substantial income for artists (but will put hundreds of millions of euros into the pockets of a few giant record companies), and will doom huge swaths of European musical history to obscurity because no one will be able to figure out who it belongs to, so no one will be able to re-issue it.

Term extension has been a failure around the world. In the US, it's created a disastrous mountain of "orphan works" -- more than 98% of the works in copyright, according to findings from the Supreme Court's hearing of Eldred v Ashcraft -- that can't be brought back to life and will likely disappear before they enter the public domain.

Make no mistake: most artists will receive as little as &Euro;0.50 from this measure, and the major labels that screwed them will get millions. And the public will pay those millions for music that, by all rights, should now be free after having had its full 50 years in copyright.

Some of the particular problems are:

The extension of copyright to 95 or even 70 years will increase the revenue of trust funds of deceased performers instead of living performers.

Many performers cannot produce proof for the performances they participated in during the past decades. It then becomes difficult to assess their rights to payments.

The proposed regulation could cause legal uncertainty for all existing audiovisual productions as it will be unclear if the material used is subject to sound copyright.

There is a risk that all material that is not commercially viable will not be marketed by the copyright owners and will become inaccessible for public use.

Small record companies currently publishing copyright-free material risk going bankrupt.

Europeans: it is never too late to act. Get in touch with your MEP before the vote and let them know you support a sound copyright policy for Europe.

Act now for Sound Copyright: instructions for contacting your MEP

European Parliament Votes on Copyright Term Extension Tomorrow (Thanks, Rufus!)

[#1 posted by blahrgh, April 22, 2009 12:37 PM]

I wonder if it passes, will it have any effect on other issues - like patent extension, which I'm sure the pharmaceutical industry would like.

[#2 posted by GregLondon, April 22, 2009 12:51 PM]

Probably won't cause patent extensions because the corporations that traffic in patents realize that they need other people's patents to make their products, so there hasn't been a massive push for extensions.

What it might do though is act as a justification to extend US copyright. It seems like Europe extends their copyright terms and then a few years later the US plays catch-up. That's not good.

[#3 posted by Meeg, April 22, 2009 1:13 PM]

US law already protects recording artists' copyright for 95 years.

This is different for the copyright for writers and composers which is Life + 70 years in the US and the EU.

[#4 posted by Anonymous, April 22, 2009 2:34 PM]

Just sent a mail to my German MEPs, telling them I would check their voting tomorrow and base my decision at the European elections this summer on the outcome.

[#5 posted by Duncan Bucknell, April 22, 2009 2:35 PM]

Yeah, won't make any difference to patent term extensions. Not least because they don't exist in Europe - there are 'Supplementary Protection Certificates' instead - a narrower form of protection which protects only the product sold rather than the full scope of the previous patent.

Makes you wonder whether some sort of narrower protection should also apply to extended copyright terms.

[#6 posted by Anonymous, April 22, 2009 4:43 PM]

Copyright so-called "harmonization" doesn't work to make the length of copyright term equal. It's a scam to make sure one side is always ahead to provide continued justification to other countries to "harmonize" by increasing their term of copyright. "Harmonization" always works to increase term of copyright, never decrease (which would work if one actually sought equal terms of copyright length).

And copyright "protection" is a propaganda term. Long-lasting terms of copyright have significant detrimental effects on society's freedoms of speech and cooperation. We don't need longer terms of copyright and the profit protection is grants to large corporate copyright holders. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Protection for more how one should more fairly see the term "protection" used in this context.

[#7 posted by remmelt, April 22, 2009 11:44 PM]

So if I make a video today, with 60 year old music as the track and this passes into law, will I be liable?

Massive fail.

[#8 posted by samtotherescue, April 23, 2009 2:23 AM]

I contacted 3 of my MEPs about this vote. Here's a brief summary of how they responded:

Glenis Willmott (Labour -- Glenis is the same MP who famously called for games consoles to have some kind of "red button" that could disable objectionable content *sigh*):
Supports the extension: "For reasons of equality and fairness, given the far longer period given to authors and others in the creative chain, Labour MEPs believe there is a strong case for extending the term of protection to ensure performers continue to receive the income from their work for their entire lifetime."

Roger Helmer (Conservative):
Balanced opinion; indicates he will probably vote against the extension.
"On the one hand we understand that Copyright is extremely important because it is the way artists are rewarded, businesses make their money and invest in the future. Some have also claimed that a copyright extension would prevent piracy to a certain degree.
"On the other hand, I have deep reservations regarding this proposal. It has been argued that few living artists will benefit, and those who will are frequently elderly and rich. The measure will protect the back-archives of dominant companies in the business and act as a barrier to entry for new, small and innovative players. And it will limit access to older popular music for mature listeners (like me!) who might appreciate it.
"I will keep these points in mind, but I am minded not to support the measure."

Bill Newton Dunn (Liberal Democrat):
No opinion states in his reply, but did say "The parliament will be voting on this tomorrow - and it looks like a close-run decision".

I didn't contact Robert Kilroy Silk because he's a massive douche.

I was suprised that the Tories, the party of big business, were the only party to indicate they were likely not to support the extension.

[#9 posted by Cyberwasteland, April 23, 2009 8:45 AM]

So Copyright is supposed to be about protecting authors. Is there any case to have copyright exist after and author is deceased? No! From that moment on there's no benefit for eater creator or consumer, just for parasites who try to abuse art.

There's no reason why a work should be copyrighted after the author has died.
The work should be released into Public Domain the day the person died.

[#10 posted by GregLondon, April 23, 2009 8:52 AM]

I'm not a huge fan of the idea that copyright terms be tied to the death of the author.

Mark Twain wrote most of his books under a 42 year fixed term. Apparently that was enough incentive to get him to write. I think he did pretty well as far as income was concerned.

Bounty Hunters

[#11 posted by SlasherMCT, April 23, 2009 4:24 PM]

I wrote to my MEP's using the excellent service and I was amazed to get 3 favourable responses back in the same day - 2 of them within a couple of hours!