digg

Facebook Connect Join Digg About
See the original image at torrentfreak.com

EU to Extend Music Copyright to 95 Years

torrentfreak.com — The IFPI and mediocre artists around the world are rubbing their hands in glee, after a proposal to extend copyright in the EU for another 45 years. The proposal, intended to ‘benefit musicians’, comes up for a vote on Wednesday. On the plus side, at the same time collecting societies are going to have their practices scrutinized.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jul 15, 2008

Digg DudeWhat is Digg?

Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. Digg surfaces the best stuff as submitted and voted on by the community. Take the Tour to learn more.

64 Comments

show profanity settings
expand all
  • vfreak2, on 07/14/2008, -1/+45GREED
  • donfrancisco, on 07/15/2008, -1/+35This is not about the artist interest its about the record lable's interest!
  • jokertothethief, on 07/15/2008, -2/+36Meh, it's ok; piracy retracts music copyright to zero years.
  • Rizoh, on 07/14/2008, -3/+34That's good and all, but how many of these artists will put down the crack pipe long enough to see their 95th birthday?
  • sk11, on 07/15/2008, -0/+28"I am not talking about featured artists like Cliff Richard or Charles Aznavour. I am talking about the thousands of anonymous session musicians who contributed to sound recordings in the late fifties and sixties. They will no longer get airplay royalties from their recordings. But these royalties are often their sole pension."

    If that is the case, the copyright should expire when the artist dies.
  • dsmx, on 07/14/2008, -3/+29So they want to create a system that stifles innovation because there is now no incentive to create new stuff?
  • fanclerks, on 07/15/2008, -1/+19OK, this crap is getting ***** ridiculous. The initial 28 year copyright period was fine and worked the way intended, ie. let an artist make a profit off their work for a period of time and then let it pass into the public domain so that someone else can create something based off of that work and so on and so on. The constant extending of the copyright period with these Mickey Mouse laws is just getting insane. How is anyone ever supposed to be able to make derivative work of something if it's under an infinite copyright? I wonder what Walt Disney would have done had Steamboat Willy been under the copyright terms that they keep trying to push now. It's not even about the artist making money off their work anymore. It's just going straight back to their management company. And whatever happened to them planning for retirement like the rest of us?
  • geoken, on 07/15/2008, -2/+17It's at the point where I don't even care about these laws anymore. Let content owners own their copyrights as long as they want. The real solution is to vote with your wallet and show content owners that regardless of their legal rights, acting in a certain manner will hurt them financially.

    I think the PC gaming industry is a good example. Rather than complaining about the legality of something like StarForce, consumers mobilized to the point where using that method of content protection on a game caused a measurable loss in sales for the game's publisher. It wasn't long until StarForce became nothing more than a bad memory.
  • vfreak2, on 07/15/2008, -0/+11exactly, it's the record label that gets the most (by far) from the royalties!
  • whatcha-call-it, on 07/15/2008, -0/+10And God Said Let There be 45 More Years of Piracy
  • vaccumpony, on 07/15/2008, -0/+10>If that is the case, the copyright should expire when the artist dies.

    Hmmmm. Perhaps the record labels would then become investors in life extention technology. I'm all for it!
  • ike368, on 07/15/2008, -1/+10the incentive to create new music is to hear sounds.

    duh.
  • jdubdub, on 07/15/2008, -0/+8I'm a musician but I agree that 95 years is just far too long. Why should music I write now still be earning the record label money in 2103??

    I suppose the plus side of having infinite copyright is that my music will never be featured on one of those stupid Time mixed CDs :o)
  • krwlngindark, on 07/15/2008, -0/+7LEAVE AMY WINEHOUSE ALOOOONE
  • ktetch, on 07/14/2008, -2/+9It goes to their decendants too.

    Don't you wish your parents and grandparents had been session musicians, instead of the jobs that put worth into the community. Instead of having to save, or plan a pension, they could just have a politician give them longer to earn from work they did decades ago, and then to give you money after they're dead.
  • Kanele, on 07/15/2008, -1/+8Eu sold to lobbies too?
  • quakken, on 07/15/2008, -0/+7I have an idea! how about everything becomes creative commons the minute the person dies! It's for the ARTIST to reap the benefits from his work, not his decendants and the record company forever after he has died. That way, we would have all of nirvana's stuff, elvis, think about the possibilities! Marketable Elvis Mashups. Awesome.

  • UltraDavid, on 07/15/2008, -0/+7This is not about the artists' interests or the labels' interests, it's about my interests and your interests and the interests of society generally. Copyright is useful only to the extent that it incentivizes the creation of more culture than would otherwise be created, and it cannot act as an incentive for creation for a work if that work has already been created. This bill is about who ultimately owns culture, a few individuals or corporations or society generally.
  • psevium, on 07/15/2008, -0/+6That just screams of "I don't want to work a real job and be financially responsible, I want ten Limo's carting around my drugs all paid for by one song 50 years ago"

    They already get a free ride through royalties much of their life and now they want to extend it instead of, I don't know, getting a normal job for a bit? Hell even endorsements would pay well
  • inactive, on 07/15/2008, -0/+6I could care less how many years they rule it over copyright. The media companies have pissed me off to the point where I havn't purchased a movie or a single audio track in the past 5 years. ***** it, extend the copyright to 1,000 years, it means nothing anyway.
  • layzice, on 07/15/2008, -0/+6and Captain Obvious ^
  • Stevethegreat, on 07/15/2008, -0/+5Yeah that's exactly what we need, extending worthless bureaucracy, because as we know it was bureaucracy the incentive for great music to be made and without copyright no good music would be possible. Also what a charming idea to to give some people the rights of their parents work so that they will never have to work and crippling them in the process from a societal point view.

    I know that Bach wrote good music, but if his works had 100 years copyright, they would be 100 times as good, like nowadays music which is also multiple times as good as the times that copyright was limited or non existent at all.
  • UltraDavid, on 07/15/2008, -0/+5What's the purpose of copyright for you, to reward people who make culture or to incentivize people to make as much culture as possible? And which is better in your opinion, perpetual ownership of culture by a few individuals or an eventual ownership of culture by all of us?
  • ElSnuggles, on 07/15/2008, -0/+5pardon me while i laugh. Do these guys really think that people will continue to care?
  • markstory, on 07/15/2008, -1/+6This is just silly. 95 years is way too long as is the BS system we have in Canada / US. Artist life + 70 years is far too long. Really if you can't figure out how to milk the cow when you are alive, then your work should really be set free. Your kids and grandkids can get their own jobs.

    Personally I'm just waiting for Mickey Mouse to come up for expiry again. See if the North american copyright term gets even longer. See if disney can three-peat its copyright lobby magic.
  • imhalfpirate, on 07/15/2008, -0/+4True! Were in the golden years people!
  • dsmx, on 07/15/2008, -4/+8Why would "artists" need to create new sounds when they will get money for 95 years once they create 1 thing?
  • sfacets, on 07/15/2008, -0/+4This only reinforces my resolve never to buy another CD or DVD.
  • paulsmith288, on 07/15/2008, -0/+3AND?

    Why dont they get a pension like the rest of us? Why are they SO special?
    (I dont hate them or anything - but why are they different to you/me? )
  • dilbert, on 07/15/2008, -0/+3Yep, lobbying is clearly a democratic event. The ordinary people are to vote 1day in every 4 years or so and the rest of the time the lobby's are in power. Isn't democracy great?
  • Rotzooi, on 07/14/2008, -4/+7As if the music that's being released now is good enough to last that long. Somehow I doubt anything from after 1983 is going to be regarded as 'classic'. I don't think I'll be passing my "Me So Horny" cd (including Happy Hardcore remix) to a next generation of music-lovers.

    (yeah, a handful of good albums were released since '83, I'm just sayin')
  • charlie763, on 07/15/2008, -0/+3Savages!
  • YodaJones, on 07/15/2008, -0/+3Let's see: 95 years x zero = zero. That's about what the artists get from the RIAA already.
  • wiresjr, on 07/15/2008, -0/+3Oh good. The 'Protect the Beatles' law is getting revisited.
  • VicTheKnife, on 07/15/2008, -1/+4lol @ ..."IFPI and mediocre artists"
  • Patori, on 07/15/2008, -0/+2In the EU. Not the US.
  • 5DMT, on 07/15/2008, -0/+2And this is why the music industry is ***** failing. When you ***** your clients (the artists) you get ***** music, and when you ***** your customers they don't buy your ***** music. Everybody loses, but the labels lose bigger because they pay for everything and they lose their talent and dilute the pool of available artists with ever more crap.

    Just give it more time, the industry will continue to rip itself apart until no labels are left. Maybe then the artists and sound engineers will make some money.
  • rz8472, on 07/15/2008, -0/+2That logo sort of looks like the Caldari State from EvE Online. Coincidence that it has a relation to a loose conglomeration of evil megacorporations?
  • MrViklund, on 07/15/2008, -0/+2Not good. Not good.
  • TheJalu, on 07/15/2008, -0/+2I don't think so many people buy the albums of the people from that time that can add money to their pension...so they should let the copyright go.
  • iCoty, on 07/15/2008, -1/+3They're still fighting this?!
  • tnoy, on 07/15/2008, -1/+3Release it yourself. That way, you and your family will be making money off it until 2103.
  • wexmajor, on 07/15/2008, -1/+3But then how will we have a privileged noble class if their immense riches don't carry on to their descendants for a century afterwards!!!?
  • aidanj93, on 07/15/2008, -0/+2I'm confused...is this related to the ACTA? That didn't pass, did it?
  • Schmich, on 07/15/2008, -0/+2Nah EU just tends to pass unprioritized (if that even is a word) and/or stupid rules on their own.
  • pilot3033, on 07/15/2008, -3/+5you assume that artists are capitalists. while this is true for some, many musicians consider themselves artists with the incentive to create music not money, but art. We're not creative to be rewarded for it, we're creative to be creative.

    Money is just a a side bonus. If we're lucky enough, our art will support us. Most of the time, that is not the case.
  • StEligius, on 07/15/2008, -1/+3Even though i disagree with Ayn Rand on a number of subjects (laissez-faire capitalism is as bad as the opposite). I agree with the idea in Atlas Shrugged that governments pass these insane laws so the populace will break them. The government then can selectively prosecute (or is that persecute) as they see fit, its all about leverage. And by governments I mean the corporate fascist complex that is popping up everywhere.
  • Khast, on 07/15/2008, -0/+2I said in the bottom, only CD/DVD media sales should count, to prevent such crap. (Not that that BS doesn't happen already with the current copyrights.)

    ...but I also think that the songs used in the movies shouldn't count toward the music count..... Just the movie itself.
  • fanclerks, on 07/15/2008, -0/+2Actually, I think it'd make the companies just over market the stuff to try to keep making money off of it. Can you imagine the same song being in every 3rd movie you see and being advertised everywhere?
  • PopcornDave, on 07/15/2008, -0/+1You're on to something there. The copyright should expire upon the death of the artist. If it's a band, then when the last member of the band dies. The only provision I would add is that if the artist died before the age of 25 ( arbitrary yes ) then the copyright would last another 25 years and that would be it.

    Of course the record companies would be howling like werewolves in heat if something with sense would be made in to law. They might have to start working again instead of just milking their cash cows.
  • Fetching more discussions...
    Show 51 - 64 of 64 discussions

  • Add a Comment

    Login or register to comment!
    Or, sign-in super fast with your Facebook account ...


© Digg Inc. 2009 — Content created and posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain | Terms of Use Updated | Privacy Policy
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.