Copyright sings to a different tune

[Guest c4evap]

Keeping time limits on copyright could open the way for a new wave of creativity, argues Kay Withers of the Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank.

 

Musicians have had a busy couple of weeks, moving from one major music ceremony to another in the hope of picking up an award.

 

From UK artists such as Franz Ferdinand and Coldplay rapidly gaining international recognition, to the Artic Monkeys record-breaking album sales, the strength and vibrancy of new talent emerging in the UK means this year's round of award ceremonies should be a time of celebration for artists, the listening public and the music industry alike.

 

But the message from the industry is one of impending gloom. They are warning that they face one of the biggest challenges to their survival since popular music exploded in the 1960s.

 

In 2013, copyright in the sound recording of the Beatles' first album expires, as it will for recordings from Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard and other performers of the same period.

 

Of course, copyright of all works expires at some point. This is for a clear reason. Copyright is designed to provide reward and incentive for creators and innovators. It also recognises that innovators and creators build on works from the past, and that they need to access these works if art, culture and science are to flourish.

 

Who loses out?

 

In the midst of an explosion in digital music sales, and a flourishing new music scene, industry executives are lobbying the UK government to extend protection for sound recordings from 50 years to 95.

 

This, they say, would protect existing revenue streams that bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones provide.

 

The argument for the extension of copyright is often presented as win-win situation for all. If we do not extend copyright, then the Beatles' sound recordings could be packaged and released by anybody, and the recording artists would not receive any money from future sales of the songs they recorded and made popular.

 

So it hurts the recording artists, the record company who owned the original copyright, and the consumers who will be faced with a deluge of low quality Beatles compilations.

 

But it is not actually the case that the artist will necessarily lose out. While copyright in the sound recording itself may be due to expire, copyright in the original work belonging to the songwriter lasts for the length of their lives plus 70 years.

 

For each sale of a Beatles recording, the owner of the copyright in the original work will continue to receive payment until this expires many years from now.

 

What will disappear is the right of individual record companies to maintain a monopoly on release of certain recordings. And this is what worries them.

 

The Beatles sound recordings emerging from copyright protection will no doubt prove a financial loss to some sectors of the UK's music industry. But it could also provide opportunities for other businesses, and for consumers alike.

 

Past influences

 

Creativity in music, film and literature is a cyclical process. New artists borrow from the past to create works to be valued in the future. In years to come, young songwriters may be looking back at the work produced by this years' crop of new talent - the Artic Monkeys, KT Tunstall, the Magic Numbers - and inspired by this will themselves create new, innovative works.

 

But for government, the difficulty is in getting the balance right.

 

On the one hand, a powerful industry lobby, responsible for many UK jobs, says it needs this change in copyright law to survive. On the other, it is not the government's role to protect one section of industry at the expense of innovation in another.

 

It is what is sometimes called the Goldilocks problem - the need to provide copyright protection at a level that is not too much, not too little, but just right. An independent review team in the Treasury is now considering these problems and will report in autumn this year.

 

The debate surrounding whether it is right or wrong to increase copyright term is often presented as a choice between all or nothing: either continue to protect the Beatles' songs or give them away for nothing, and allow artists to be ripped off and the music industry to suffer.

 

But this false polarisation is not very helpful. The majority of works produced in the 50s and 60s are no longer of any commercial value. Many are out of circulation and unavailable to would be listeners.

 

Opportunities offered by the internet and digital distribution could allow niche providers to re-package and re-distribute old recordings, bringing previously 'lost' creative content to contemporary ears.

 

If you walk into a bookshop you can buy a copy of Dickens' Bleak House, or Austen's Pride and Prejudice for about £1.50. The copyright in these works has long expired so different publishers can compete to offer them at lower prices. Consumers have benefited from the works being out of protection.

 

So perhaps the expiration of copyright in sound recordings for the Beatles should not be seen as the end of music. Instead it could be the end of an era, perhaps.

 

It arrives at the start of new careers for new artists producing new and exciting music.

 

Kay Withers is a Research Fellow on the Digital Society & Media team at the Institute for Public Policy Research

 

Food for thought.

 

I don't think it should be extended. Like the article says -

 

...copyright in the original work belonging to the songwriter lasts for the length of their lives plus 70 years.

Seems long enough to me.

 

What do you think?

 

c4 :thinking:

[mateya]

I dont think it should be extended. Cmon, isnt the length of their lives plus 70 years enough?

Greedy corporations..

[TetsuoShima]

If anything copyright should be shortened to say 35 years (in total, not after death). If you get a patent on technology, you recieve it for a comparable timeframe. So, say you write a song when you're 30 say you die when you're 70, you would have had the copyright for 110 years. That is just plain rediculous!!! I do not understand that the governments do not simply put a stop to all these rediculous demands the entertainment industry is placing on everything... Smells like fat bribes to me!

 

imo the law should follow the lines set by the community, not the lines set by corporations. If anything, people want a broader and easier use of music/movies/... If you create a law that is not in line with what people want, people ARE going to break the law. It's as simple as that. People are not mindless automatons that do what they are told, people have an opinion of their own and they will follow their own guidelines (if they even have a somewhat reasonable chance of getting away with it, should it not be allowed), not other peoples guidelines. That is something that is widely known. So it has absolutely NO use to create a law, from which you know in advance that it will create a whole new group of unlawfull activities by people that don't agree with this 'new' law.

 

Examples of this are plentifull in history, to point out just one in 'recent' (ahum) American history: The Prohibition that ultimately failed because of these very same reasons...

 

When will they ever learn... :thinking:

[Carnifex]

snip....The argument for the extension of copyright is often presented as win-win situation for all. If we do not extend copyright' date=' then the Beatles' sound recordings could be packaged and released by anybody, and the recording artists would not receive any money from future sales of the songs they recorded and made popular.....[i']snip[/i]

 

As oppossed to it being just Michael Jackson. :stare:

[magestorm]

I honestly feel they are too long already. I say no longer than what drug companies get before they have toallow someone else to make generic versions.

 

That's right. Seven years from introduction to the end to the copyrights. I honestly feel anything past this is really outrageous to society.

[bbbb]

I'm getting sick of all this copyright crap. Who cares?

[Mav]

I actually agree on copyright "extension". Think about it;

 

You create something that will probably be used or viewed by people for easily a hundred years or more (i.e. Mickey Mouse for example).

 

You live your life, have a family, kids, grandkids etc and die.

 

Now shouldn't it be fair that something you created benefit your family and relatives and not just be in the public domain for any jack or joe to use?

 

Look at it like an inheritance, if your parents made something that can last many many years you should be able to inherit the benefits from it when they pass away, even 70+ years after so.

 

Now obviously I am aganist copyrights in themselves, cause these days movies and muscians and such set out just to make money. They no longer do it for the love of art, or creativity, they are motivated by the all powerful dollar sign (insert your own currency symbol here). But like everything else, there are exceptions. Look at Disney, he didn't set out to create some vast empire to operate a cash cow. He enjoyed what he did, he loved children and entertaining them. Him copyrighting his stuff, understandable. The next Coldplay knockoff who thinks it's cool to quite school, college etc to just form a band so they can do one or two tours rake in a few million then "retire"? They, don't deserve it.

[Anonyman]

If you walk into a bookshop you can buy a copy of Dickens' Bleak House, or Austen's Pride and Prejudice for about £1.50. The copyright in these works has long expired so different publishers can compete to offer them at lower prices. Consumers have benefited from the works being out of protection.

 

Good argument. Copyrights should not extend forever. When the original author/singer dies then it should become public domain.

 

 

 

 

[Guest c4evap]

I'm getting sick of all this copyright crap. Who cares?

 

IF YOU DON'T CARE - DON'T POST!

 

c4 :stare:

[magestorm]

This is what innovation is all about. You don't see Steven King sitting there on the pile of books he wrote, and not at least trying to write more. He still cranks them out every couple of years. Most bands that are worth anything make a new album every year.

 

Think on this. How many albums are sold right now that are 7 years old? Not many. Hell, most albums are sold and done being delt with 6 months after they first come out. How much money is being made off of a movie that is 7 years old? Barely any, as most companies rerelease it, or just repress some copies and sell them at a discount. I see in the local Wal-Mart scores of movies for $5, and a majority for $10 or less.

 

Also, look at who REALLY owns the copyrights to these. Does the musician really own the copyright? Nope. Right on most albums out there it states the owners are the recording company. The movies? Same deal.

 

You look at the copyright system in place currently. A drug that is patented gets 7 years before the copyrights expire. A new microchip? 7-20 years.

 

So why does music get 100 years before getting released to the public? This is an obscene deal that benefits not the artists, actors, or creators of what drives our society, but to greedy corporations that merely want to make a buck. Hell, I'm working on my own project, and after 7 years would expect to give it to the common public, as I would have made plenty off of them.

[ceedj]

So why does music get 100 years before getting released to the public? This is an obscene deal that benefits not the artists' date=' actors, or creators of what drives our society, but to greedy corporations that merely want to make a buck. Hell, I'm working on my own project, and after 7 years would expect to give it to the common public, as I would have made plenty off of them.[/quote']

 

THANK YOU!

 

More reason to see the industry DIE! DIE! DIEDIEDIEDIE-

 

Oops. Fiver got in the way. :)

[magestorm]

And yes, I speak as a writer who has offered his stories for years without cost, and developing a show. 7 bloody years is good enough. If I want more money, I get off my lazy butt and make more.

[atgxtg]

I actually agree on copyright "extension". Think about it;

 

You create something that will probably be used or viewed by people for easily a hundred years or more (i.e. Mickey Mouse for example).

 

You live your life, have a family, kids, grandkids etc and die.

 

Now shouldn't it be fair that something you created benefit your family and relatives and not just be in the public domain for any jack or joe to use?

 

Look at it like an inheritance, if your parents made something that can last many many years you should be able to inherit the benefits from it when they pass away, even 70+ years after so.

 

Now obviously I am aganist copyrights in themselves, cause these days movies and muscians and such set out just to make money. They no longer do it for the love of art, or creativity, they are motivated by the all powerful dollar sign (insert your own currency symbol here). But like everything else, there are exceptions. Look at Disney, he didn't set out to create some vast empire to operate a cash cow. He enjoyed what he did, he loved children and entertaining them. Him copyrighting his stuff, understandable. The next Coldplay knockoff who thinks it's cool to quite school, college etc to just form a band so they can do one or two tours rake in a few million then "retire"? They, don't deserve it.

 

Okay, I did think about it. I didn't like what came to mind. If mankind had such copyright laws in the past, we'd never have any sort of technology. Fire, the Wheel, antibiotics, anestesia, movable type, the piano, the alphabet, newtonian physics, calculus, language, mathematics, powered flight, indoor plumbing, crop rotation, the internal combustion engine, magnetisi. Where wuold we be if we all had to pay copyright royaties to use any of them? All invention and advancement is built upon the achievements of others. Anything that anyone invets today i done using information and skills, and technology that others developed years ago.

 

Think of what our lives would be like if someone owned the patent for the whell, or if Gutenburg's decendants owned the copyrite for movable type. What if they guarded that right jealously, and only allowed certain books to be printed? What if Gutenburg's family didn't allow Shakespear's works to be printed? What if Shakespears family couldn't work out a pecentage with Geutenburg's family to print Hamlet? Come to think of it, Shakespears works are based upon the works of others, and they could sue Shakespear for copyright infringement.

 

...and they would get sued by those people who'se ancestors used to do cave paintings. Whick would be all of us, since it would be impossible to advance beyond the caves--someone would probably secure the rights to engineering.

 

After a point technology should belong to mankind, not to one man/woman/or group. Extending copywrite laws would hurt mankind just so a small number of people could make more money off something just because they were luky enough to be related to someone who actually went out and did something. If the invention was really that fantastic they would have inherited enough money from thier Inventor relative to live in luxury.

 

 

Besides, all the big companies viloate copywright laws whenever they can get away with it. Such "rights" only protect those with the money to afford the lawyers to defend them

All the motion picture companies today are violating Thomas Edison's copyright for the "kenetiscope" (motion picture camera). So how can thieves have rights to anything made in direct violation of another's copyright?

 

 

 

 

[VonHelton]

When I was 7 years old, I sang my first song:

 

Jerrimiah was a Bullfrog/Joy to the World.......By Creedence Clearwater Revival.

 

I don't recall having to pay CCR a duty to sing the song, I just stood up & sang it.

 

.......Poorly at first, but I got better.

 

:p