EU Commissioner Proposes 95 year Copyright

Albanach writes "The European Union Commissioner for the Internal Market has today proposed extending the copyright term for musical recordings to 95 years. He also wishes to investigate options for new levies on blank discs, data storage and music and video players to compensate artists and copyright holders for 'legal copying when listeners burn an extra version of an album to play one at home and one in the car ... People are living longer and 50 years of copyright protection no longer give lifetime income to artists who recorded hits in their late teens or early twenties, he said.'"

Sweet!

[Captain Splendid]

That clinches it, I'm moving back to Europe.

Obviously, Crack is cheaper and more plentiful over there.

Re:Sweet!

[Brian Gordon]

Must be, this is crazy. How do artists need to be compensated for making copies of their work? You own the CD, you can copy it, as many times as you want, give/sell it to whoever you want, period. This imaginary property thinking is getting eerily pervasive.. nobody even thinks to question it anymore, even on slashdot.

Re:

[alext]

Because the only way artists get compensated is via copies of their work?

Re:

[rootofevil]

-1, disingenuous.

musical artists make their scratch from concerts, not album sales.

Re:

[s.bots]

musical artists who are signed to a thieving record label make their scratch from concerts, not album sales.

There, FYP for you.

Re:Sweet!

[fastest fascist]

What if they don't want to tour, or live performance doesn't fit their music? I'd just like to get this clarified: The claim here is that people have no right to expect to get paid for recordings of their works?

Re:Sweet!

[rkanodia]

I do think that people should be able to get paid for recordings if you want to, but if you don't want to, you know, go out and do a job every day like everyone else does, maybe you shouldn't complain that you aren't getting paid every week living everyone else is.

Re:Sweet!

[poetmatt]

And whose fault is it if they don't want to tour? Not ours? Not our job to supply someone else's income, you know. Whose fault is it they failed to make a product that gives people a reason to want to pay for it? This is why people fail businesses lately, and I have no sympathy for that.

There are plenty of people who make their own CD and bootleg copies of it to make a living for example. Technobrega in Brazil is a great example of that. You're disputing how Much people should be paid for it, not if they should or not.

People are paid for their work in a variety of fashions. You could sell it anywhere. The key word there is in some form you have to sell your music. Just because you made it in the past doesn't entitle you to be paid for it in the future unless you figure out how to sell it.

The intent of copyright is to create a reason for innovation. When you have no financial incentive to create more things, where are you to say that there is innovation?
When a DJ wants to mix your song but can't because you won't give him rights (or even royalties, or not enough royalties), are you "protecting your rights" or stifling innovation?

Re:

[Incadenza]

The intent of copyright is to create a reason for innovation.

Says who? It certainly is not in the law book. What you - and a lot of others in this thread - do, is attributing a reason to the law and then attacking that reason.

You might as well state that, as most laws, copright law is a moral law. When somebody makes a chair, it is fair that he'd be paid for that. When somebody cuts your hair, it is fair that he'd be paid for that. When somebody teaches you a course, it is fair that he'd be paid for that.

Re:Sweet!

[JoshHeitzman]

People have no right to get paid for a single work for the rest of their life. Most people do not get this government privilege and I see no reason why musicians other artists should either.

Re:Sweet!

[Critical Facilities]

Because the ease of recording a work is so great

You know, I've seen this argument used in similar threads a few times and it really bugs me. It completely reduces the art of songwriting/composing to the physical process, which is admittedly easier than ever. However, that does not mean that the ENTIRE process is easy. Recording the song(s) is fairly easy. Writing the songs is hard. I am a composer/musician and I assure you, the writing is the hard part. In the same way that buying paint, brushes and canvas is easy yet creating a masterpiece is difficult.

Re:

[SerpentMage]

You see the problem with parts of the Slashdot crowd is that they don't write the songs, or do the painting and don't realize how much work goes into the art.

Let me compare this to painting. There are two ways you can go with painting. Painting masterpieces or production art. Production art are originals that are produced within a few days. Artists have to do this because people want originals and not reproductions. And people are not willing to pay oodles for something hanging on their wall. So the artist

Re:Sweet!

[Chosen Reject]

I think I can understand why it bothers you. Are you the type of person who thinks price is related only to cost? Are you the type of person who thinks price and value are the same? If you are, then that is why you have such a hard time with it.

First, price and cost are two unrelated things. As an example, diamonds cost a whole lot more than they cost to extract from the earth. And there are some things that are priced only slightly more than they cost to produce, otherwise nobody could sell it at a profit (ignoring loss leaders here). So yes, it is hard to create music (cost), but the market doesn't price it that high. Part of the reason the market doesn't price it much is because recording costs are practically nil. That might seem a contradiction, but what I'm really saying is that copies are so easy to make, that they become an infinite good. You cannot create a business around infinite goods alone. You have to sell something other than the copy, because copies are so easy to come by.

Second, price and value are totally separate beasts. As an example, air is invaluable to humans, but a business would have a hard time making money by selling it because it is so abundant. Again, because copies of music are infinite goods, prices come down. The value is still the same. That is, no one values music less just because it's easy to copy, they just get it free.

That is why the only way to make money off of albums is to try to control it with the threat of law and DRM. The problem though is DRM doesn't stop piracy, but instead annoys paying customers[1]. And copyright law is becoming so ludicrous (including what some copyright holders are doing to enforce it) that people no longer have respect for that law.

Artists have to realize that. This is really a business model issue. Somebody above asked what happens if the musician didn't want to tour or the live performance didn't fit their music. They have several options. They can decide not to make their music, they can make their music and release it to the world for free, they can try to control it with DRM or threat of law (as mentioned above, this isn't looking all that good), or they can find other ways to make a profit from it (perhaps commissioned work, or have performances where they introduce each prerecorded piece). The first option doesn't get anywhere, the second option might not make any money but may get them recognition for a job making music (say for movies or operas or something), the third option is what a lot are doing now, but the fourth option can make them money.

[1]I watched Spider-Man 3 the other day and I swear there were at least three copyright notices before I started to watch the movie. That is just stupid. Copyright infringers (which are the people making copies to sell or give away) aren't going to pay attention to it, and are probably going to not copy that part anyway.

Re:Sweet!

[cpt kangarooski]

That's true; you could eliminate copyright for the fine arts and it really wouldn't have much of an impact at all. Picasso didn't make his money selling picture postcards, after all. (Though he was known for dashing things off from time to time in lieu of cash payments)

But the reality is that copyright helps people earn livings.

But that's not a good enough reason. I mean, if you merely wanted to give money to authors, why not just dole it out, or give them a big tax break or something? Copyright is meant to serve the public interest, not to help authors. It just happens to help authors as a means to an end. It's not written in stone that we have to do it at all, though, or that the current laws are the best ones.

What if we could reduce copyright, thus yielding a great benefit to the public in terms of more freedom with regard to works, but without significantly reducing how much money most artists make? Wouldn't that be great? Well, we can do it, because current copyright law is so very far out of whack.

Re:

[drsmithy]

This whole discussion really points to the question of how do artists make a living? I mean, artists of all genres and media are creators of unique, valuable stuff. But I think the real issue is this:

No, the real issue is that the vast majority of art is not outstanding. That is, there are tens of millions of people the world over who could produce something as good. Ie: if you're not producing outstanding art, your work simply isn't worth much, because everyone knows at least one person who can do it j

Re:Sweet!

[KnightNavro]

musical artists make their scratch from concerts, not album sales.

So the Beatles didn't make a dime after their last concert in 1966?

Album sales are the sole source of income for many bands that don't tour. Lots of bands and artists that rely on heavy studio production can't effectively take their show on the road and live on album sales alone.

Re:Sweet!

[Sparr0]

Then they are in the wrong line of work. The explicitly stated purpose of copyright is to encourage the creation of new works, NOT to ensure the lifetime income of works creators. If they want to make more money, start writing/performing new stuff.

Re:Sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

The explicitly stated purpose of copyright is to encourage the creation of new works

That's a nice myth, until you read this [questioncopyright.org]:

Yet a close look at history shows that copyright has never been a major factor in allowing creativity to flourish. Copyright is an outgrowth of the privatization of government censorship in sixteenth-century England. There was no uprising of authors suddenly demanding the right to prevent other people from copying their works; far from viewing copying as theft, authors generally regarded it as flattery. The bulk of creative work has always depended, then and now, on a diversity of funding sources: commissions, teaching jobs, grants or stipends, patronage, etc. The introduction of copyright did not change this situation. What it did was allow a particular business model -- mass pressings with centralized distribution -- to make a few lucky works available to a wider audience, at considerable profit to the distributors.

[...]

The first copyright law was a censorship law. It had nothing to do with protecting the rights of authors, or encouraging them to produce new works. Authors' rights were in no danger in sixteenth-century England, and the recent arrival of the printing press (the world's first copying machine) was if anything energizing to writers. So energizing, in fact, that the English government grew concerned about too many works being produced, not too few. The new technology was making seditious reading material widely available for the first time, and the government urgently needed to control the flood of printed matter, censorship being as legitimate an administrative function then as building roads.

[...]

The system was quite openly designed to serve booksellers and the government, not authors. New books were entered in the Company's Register under a Company member's name, not the author's name. By convention, the member who registered the entry held the "copyright", the exclusive right to publish that book, over other members of the Company, and the Company's Court of Assistants resolved infringement disputes.

This was not simply the latest manifestation of some pre-existing form of copyright. It's not as though authors had formerly had copyrights, which were now to be taken away and given to the Stationers. The Stationers' right was a new right, though one based on a long tradition of granting monopolies to guilds as a means of control. Before this moment, copyright -- that is, a privately held, generic right to prevent others from copying -- did not exist. People routinely printed works they admired when they had the chance, an activity which is responsible for the survival of many of those works to the present day. One could, of course, be enjoined from distributing a specific document because of its potentially libelous effect, or because it was a private communication, or because the government considered it dangerous and seditious. But these reasons are about public safety or damage to reputation, not about property ownership. There had also been, in some cases, special privileges (then called "patents") allowing exclusive printing of certain types of books. But until the Company of Stationers, there had not been a blanket injunction against printing in general, nor a conception of copyright as a legal property that could be owned by a private party.

That's right. Too many works were being created, so they instituted censorship to curb and control the flow of enlightening material to their subjects. Then privatized that, and copyright grew from there as a self preserving reaction, after their initial monopoly had been dissolved. It was nothing more than a shameless attempt to continue that monopoly, at the cost of damaging our culture.

Re:Sweet!

[Sparr0]

Write 1 hit song, get exclusive rights to it for 14 years. 13 years later, realize the gravy train is running out and you need to write another song... Sounds like incentive to me.

Re:Sweet!

[beav007]

How about "get a real job, like everyone else"?

Honestly, how many people here expect to be able to design a and then sit back for the rest of their lives receiving money for it? You get paid for your time, and then you get given the next project. You stop working, you stop getting paid.

Disclaimer: I am a non-recording (hobby) musician.

Re:Sweet!

[arth1]

They do get compensated. Question is for how long they should continue to be compensated for something they no longer lift a finger for.
The whole purpose of the copyright is to ensure progress, not individual riches.

If anything, with the rate of progress being so much higher today than it was back when copyrights first were instated, it would make sense to make current copyrights shorter than what they were back then. Say 5 years. That would ensure that the artists would get a good source of income while working on their next production, and even be allowed to fail once or twice. And it would prevent them from resting on their laurels, which doesn't exactly enrich the world.

And, quite frankly, this isn't about the artist anymore. Since copyrights unfortunately aren't unalienable rights, but goods that can be sold (even before the creation happens!), the real beneficiaries of copyright extensions are big companies who don't create anything, just make money on other people creating.
If nobody were allowed to sell the rights to their creation, only enter short term distribution agreements, then artists wouldn't have to sell their rights in order to make money, because they would not compete with others able and willing to do so. They would be free to switch to a higher bidder or better marketer, a freedom which in itself would cause an increase in worth for their product. But they would have to keep on producing, or eventually the income would drain up.

Regards,
--
*Art

Re:

[DragonWriter]

If they don't get compensated for their work, there is no incentive to create new things. If you don't allow them to charge for distribution of their work, they are not getting compensated.

Most copyrighted works make most of their money in the first handful years. A 15 year copyright would enable virtually every artist and author to make just as much money as they make under a 95 year copyright.

Re:Sweet!

[dedalus2000]

The idea of working on something for a few weeks or months then getting payed for the remainder of your life seems kind of odd to me. artists can't make a dime for a work half done so some term of protection is certainly in all of our interests but anything past 14 years is corporate welfare. At some point the value of the original work is recouped and further copy protections become hindrances in that they discourage further development based on the original works and further productivity by the original creator. we limit the rights of society as a whole to produce copies of original works in order to encourage production of original works beyond that there is no value social or otherwise in limiting these individual rights.

Re:Sweet!

[utopianfiat]

anything past 5 years is corporate welfare
fixed.

Re:Sweet!

[Mr. Shiny And New]

The thing is, copyright is already "lifetime + 70" for the composers of the piece. The royalties in question in the article are for PERFORMERS. Now, performing music is hard, but so is surgery, and we don't pay surgeons once they retire.

Re:Sweet!

[KnightNavro]

You're missing the point. Some bands just aren't touring bands, like the Beatles post 1966. They continued to produce great music after they stopped touring (Sgt Pepper, Abbey Road, Let It Be...).

A more modern band may not tour for several reasons. Perhaps they don't gig because he lives in New Zealand, the singer's in London, and the guitarist lives in LA. To make a track, each musician lays down a track and FTPs it to their server, where the next guy downloads it to add his part. Should they be denied the right to make money for their music?

Another example is one or two guys hanging out in a basement studio who lay down six or seven instruments worth of music. Yeah, they could go on tour and play their one or two instruments live while flying in the rest, but I'd feel robbed if that's what I saw for a $20 dollar ticket. Plus, many audiences want to see same band live as they hear on the CD. They could take the huge financial risk of hiring a band, teaching them the music, quitting their day jobs, and doing everything live, but why not just sell the CDs, keep their day jobs, and make enough money to cover the cost of the studio?

Another example is a supergroup or a collaboration where the various members only have enough availability to be in the same place at the same time for one week to create the album, then they have to go to their regular bands.

There is no shortage of reasons that a band may not tour.

I'm not talking about a 95 year copyright being reasonable (it's not), but to say that a band should make all its money by gigging is ridiculous.

Re:Sweet!

[orasio]

Because the only way artists get compensated is via copies of their work?

I don't get it.
If you buy a CD from an artist, is he losing money because you transfer them to your Ipod?
I thought that by buying the CD you were buying a license to listen to the song, regardless of the media. I don't see why an artist should care how I listen to what I paid for.

Re:Sweet!

[eiapoce]

Answer is: Stop paying for music. Once they run out of money they will have no way of corrupting our goverment into these laws.

Re:Sweet!

[sm62704]

The copyright is shorter. Not short enough; I think the twenty years it used to be here in the US is plenty long, and I say that as a copyright holder.

In fact, there are many at slashdot who want to abolish copyright entirely. I think there would be far fewer of these folks if copyrights were sanely limited.

I don't know about Europe, but here in the US we're not supposed to have lifetime copyrights. In fact, our Constitution specifies copyrights and patents are to get artists to create in order that the public domain be enriched, and that they should last "a limited time." SCOTUS fucktards, ignoring the plain language the Constitution was written in, have ruled that "limited" means whatever Congress wants it to mean.

Since all US laws are based on the Constitution, and the Supreme Court is ignoring it, I choose to ignore all the other God damned laws they write and to hell with them.

-mcgrew [slashdot.org]

Re:Sweet!

[dslbrian]

"Since all US laws are based on the Constitution, and the Supreme Court is ignoring it, I choose to ignore all the other God damned laws they write and to hell with them." Two wrongs do not make a right.

It's called civil disobedience, and when governments lose all moral standing it can be the right thing to do.

Re:

[rifter]

"Since all US laws are based on the Constitution, and the Supreme Court is ignoring it, I choose to ignore all the other God damned laws they write and to hell with them." Two wrongs do not make a right.

It's called civil disobedience, and when governments lose all moral standing it can be the right thing to do.

Maybe. But very few people are willing to go to jail to fight for the right to share MP3s.

Re:

[cpt kangarooski]

I've never understood why the Supreme Court does not use that as a test of what is a reasonable copyright term.

Three reasons.

First, the issue rarely arises, so they haven't put as much thought into it as they would for some part of the law that is frequently invoked. Second, they, like most people, are fairly susceptible to the idea that the side of authors and copyright-oriented publishers is more apt to be in the right on a copyright case than people who want the works to be in the public domain where eve

Re:Sweet!

[dmomo]

I don't understand why even the artist is entitled to profiting for their entire life. An economy has only so much budget for creative works. Every penny paid was generated from productivity. It seems wrong that we are putting production resources towards work that has long been compensated.

- Artist does work
- This costs productivity / resources
- Artist gets paid for work by money generated from productivit
- Amount of productivity / resources paid to artist doubles productivity exerted by Artist
- Every time the artist gets paid for this work, productivity and resources are being poured into a black hole. Nothing is being created. Resources are being wasted.

This is just bad economics. In short, people are laboring, and that labor benefits just one person. We can only afford to buy so much art. As the pool of available art increases, the budget for this does not. So we have less available for new works. It's time to free up those resources to put artists to work!

Re:Sweet!

[Robber Baron]

Yeah I know I'd like to still be getting paid for work I did 20 years ago! You're still living in that house aren't you? Well I helped build it, and since you're still using it, I should still be getting paid!

Re:Sweet!

[Hoi Polloi]

Shouldn't the Egyptian government be paying royalties on pyramid tourist fees to the estate of Khufu [wikipedia.org]?

Re:

[Hoi Polloi]

You are so cynical! Don't you know that this is being done for the sake of all of the struggling individual artists and writers out there? Politicians deeply care about them. It is NOT being done for bloated corporations like Disney who themselves originally profited from the public domain. They are not constantly seeking perpetual extensions of copyright protections just to protect their cash cows.

It also being done for Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

Re:Sweet!

[Puk]

That clinches it, I'm moving back to Europe.

Obviously, Crack is cheaper and more plentiful over there.

You missed the part where in the U.S., it's already [cornell.edu] 95 years for works for hire and lifetime of the author plus 70 years for plain old humans. If you want crack, we're your country.

-puk

Why?

[nebaz]

Why should anyone get a lifetime income for one thing they created? If they do, why would they bother creating anything else?

Re:Why?

[Hognoxious]

A lifetime income could be a million dollars a week or it could be 25 cents a month. However 95 years is just plain crazy.

Re:Why?

[moderatorrater]

There's a much simpler solution to that problem anyway: make the copyright end when the artist dies.

Re:Why?

[Jamu]

I think it's better for the artists if there isn't any financial incentive to see them dead.

Re:

[magarity]

make the copyright end when the artist dies
 
You've just condemned all good musicians to be one hit wonders - they'll all have 'accidents' as soon as there is one positive cash flow peice of work to avoid paying them any royalties.

Re:

[DragonWriter]

You've just condemned all good musicians to be one hit wonders - they'll all have 'accidents' as soon as there is one positive cash flow peice of work to avoid paying them any royalties.

Why? Then the label couldn't make any money of them either, as without the copyright, the work would be in the public domain. Unless you are suggesting that people that want to get away with filesharing the one hit will kill the artist to make it legal, which seems a bit unlikely.

Re:

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Do you actually think people don't make money from works in the public domain?

Re:Why?

[Laur]

But then, when a successful artist dies in an airplane crash their wife and kids will be bankrupt very soon.

That's what life insurance is for. Guess what, my employer will stop my paychecks when I die as well. The purpose of copyright is not to provide a legacy so your wife and kids will never have to do any productive work.

Re:Why?

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Guess what, you (apparently) get paid RIGHT AWAY for your work, not in royalties over a period of years.

Fifty years is more than long enough, but that should be whether the artist is alive or not.

Re:

[plague3106]

Oh well, tough. That's what happens to people employed in other jobs. Its call "life insurance." Look it up sometime.

Re:Why?

[KublaiKhan]

Indeed--aren't copyrights and patents supposed to -encourage- innovation?

Besides, if you're so poor at managing money that you can't leverage 50 years of income into a retirement account, you're an idiot.

Why is it none of the music or movie folks seem to have heard of a 401k or IRA or equivalent, anyway?

Re:

[James_Duncan8181]

Charlie McCreevy never will. He was/is one of the people pushing for software patents also. I knew I recalled the name. He's also a liar (and the email's in the header - please feel free to sue me). He said this recently about the patent directive: "I've said all along is that what the original purpose of the directive was, was to codify the existing situation." [1]

Oh, and software patent opposition is born of "anti-Americanism and anti-big business protests" [ibid]. Yes, it's true. There is no other in

Re:

[earnest murderer]

Why should anyone get a lifetime income for one thing they created? If they do, why would they bother creating anything else?

More money?

But we aren't really talking about _creators_ here, we're talking about rights owners. The author is still alive, but they don't get anything worth lobbying for. As Bob Newhart said on Sound Opinions last week... when he showed up to audit the labels records he was told there was a "fire" in the N's section of the records department. Nothing that would prevent the label from loosing revenue, but no evidence on what they owe to Bob.

Re:

[TheRealMindChild]

Personally, I wouldn't mind such ridiculously long copywrite, if copywrites were non-transferable. This makes it so a copywrite can't be sold to a corporation whole doesn't have a life span... the only copywrites a corporation would own would be works for hire... and then you should be able to classify that as a different style of copywrite... after all, they have no lifespan.

Back to the topic a little more, why SHOULDN'T someone profit from something they created for that long? If people are actually stil

Re:Why?

[TheRaven64]

Back to the topic a little more, why SHOULDN'T someone profit from something they created for that long?

I make a living from copyright, and I am very lazy. I am completely okay with the idea of being paid in perpetuity for something I create now, but I am also aware that it removes my incentive to create more. The purpose of copyright, sadly, is not for me to get rich. It is to make me (and, more realistically, others) create things that enrich our culture. Imagine if Mozart have been able to keep cashing in on his first symphony for his entire life. Would he have bothered writing the other 40?

Copyright needs to be a balance. A good creator needs to be rewarded well enough that they can make more creating than doing something else, but not so well that they just stop. I remember Terry Pratchett saying (possibly quoting someone else) 'when you stop writing, you aren't an author, you're just some guy who wrote a book once.' The copyright system should reward authors, not guys who wrote a book once (and I say this as a guy who wrote a book once).

Re:Why?

[Orange Crush]

Why should anyone get a lifetime income for one thing they created? If they do, why would they bother creating anything else?

Come on, does anyone here honestly believe this has anything at all to do with the actual artists? If someone recorded hits in their teens or twenties, I highly doubt they'll be relying on the pathetic residuals their label deigns to pay them to stay out of the poor house.

The record companies just don't want to give up their revenue on oldies--music from 1958 and prior is now lapsing into the public domain in Europe. This is music from the birth of rock and roll, i.e. Chuck Berry (who still performs at concerts, mind you!), Elvis, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, and loads more. These are classics that people are still buying new CDs of, putting on their iPods, etc. Chuck's not gonna wind up on the streets because Johnny B. Good can be downloaded legally for free, but the record company still wants their cut. *THAT'S* what this is really all about.

Re:Why?

[mhall119]

because it's not your job to make sure they create something else.

It's also not our job to make sure they can live comfortably without working for 70+ years.

It's theirs to do with as they may, and no law you made should be able to take that away from them.

And no law stops them from doing whatever the like with what they create. The law stops you and I from doing whatever *we* like with our copy.

why should you get something from them for free?

Nobody says we should. What people want is to be able to do whatever they want with that something *after* the artist has been compensated for it's creation.

why would you bother creating anything yourself?

Because artists like to create. Most musicians and visual artists in the world today get little or no compensation for their creations, yet they continue to create. Historically, artists have almost never been given decent compensation for the act of creation, and yet history is full of some of the best art (visual and musical) ever created, certainly better than most of the crap we're getting from millionaire artists these days. Inventors will continue to invent without patents, and artists will continue to create without copyrights, because that is who they are.

Re:

[Russ Nelson]

it's theirs to do with as they may, and no law you made should be able to take that away from them.

You don't understand. Copyright is a bargain, not a property right [russnelson.com]. If you own physical property, you don't need to help of the state to guard it. You stay on your property and point a gun at anybody who tries to trespass (or you hire somebody to come if you need to leave). If you own intellectual property, you cannot stop somebody else from copying it. You need to make a bargain with everybody else (the state) to get them to respect your property. The bargain is that copyright expires.

But copyright

Re:If they don't

[plague3106]

Well, you can earn a living. Except you need to do it pretty often. As in, I need to go to work almost every weekday to earn my living. Why should an musician be done their "job" after one song?

Re:

[rifter]

Well, you can earn a living. Except you need to do it pretty often. As in, I need to go to work almost every weekday to earn my living. Why should an musician be done their "job" after one song?

That's a straw man, because the reality is that they aren't. Even casting scumsucking middlemen (record labels etc) aside, you can't just make a song and have done. It has to be performed and promoted, and that is why people choose to buy a cd or tickets to their concerts. If they don't deserve your money I guess

Absurd

[dustmite]

So get a job, honestly, nobody inherently deserves to be able to survive decades from doing something once early in life unless it was truly highly valuable to society (in which case it should pay for itself, and shouldn't require forced theft of taxpayers to give somebody money for sitting on their butt). Go flip burgers or make new recordings or something, leeching from others is disgusting.

Re:Absurd

[Quiet_Desperation]

So get a job, honestly, nobody inherently deserves to be able to survive decades from doing something once early in life

Or *invest* those earnings from the big hit and live off of that. I have no sympathy for people who were millionaires due to some one time hit and then frittered it away.

Why bother?

[Hexedian]

Why bother? It's not like anything created by the current artists in their teens will still be listened to five years from now, let alone fifty...

Re:

[noidentity]

Why bother? It's not like anything created by the current artists in their teens will still be listened to five years from now, let alone fifty...

Good point! They need to add a provision for guaranteed income even if the work isn't generating any.

I agree!

[Jaysyn]

I think that the government & various communications companies that I've done work for over the years should pay me for my designs & plans for 95 years after their creation. Why yes, they are works of art!

Re:I agree!

[NeutronCowboy]

Someone give this guy props and mod him insightful. I won't comment too much, since there are plenty of comments already that point out the absurdity of this.

I'll just reiterate: there's nothing special about what an artist creates. An artist either fills a supply niche with material for which there is demand, or they're just doing intellectual masturbation. And yes, I'm dead serious with that statement.

This means that if an artist can't find a buyer, they don't deserve an income. Now, there's indeed the wrinkle of near-free unlimited distribution of digital copies of their work. Sell your song or painting to one person, and everyone in the world has access to the digital copy. Here are the options to deal with this: make sure that the first sale of the song compensates you for the work you put into it, or get enough people to pay for it to provide enough aggregate compensation. The simplest solution for this is still the tried and true live performance. You can't copy it, because then it wouldn't be live. You can easily calculate how much you need to charge to make a living.

That said, I can live with a certain amount of copyright law. This will make it easier for artists to create income and won't make the creation of art into a rat race of who can copy whose popular work the best. Personally, I'd like to see it be as long as a patent: 20 years. If 20 years is enough time to recoup investment in creating new technology, it is enough time to recoup investment in creating new art. Also, I don't think that copyright should end with the death of the artist. I'm sure there are enough people out there who aren't above killing someone to be able to freely copy and perform a piece of art. Not having the death provision in there will remove an incentive for killing. It's true that it's already illegal to kill someone, but it also doesn't mean we have to give killers a reason to kill.

EuroDisney

[Corpuscavernosa]

Man they open up that EuroDisney and now they're extending copyright over there as well... Watch out for Disney China.

Aww, damnit.

[Penguinisto]

I'm personally hoping the make a special category for bubblegum pop music - that crap can be copyrighted for 10,000 years. Sort of like how you lock up radioactive waste based on half-life.

/P

That doesn't make sense

[thisisnic]

Why would artists need compensating for when people make *legal* copies?

Re:That doesn't make sense

[ewilts]

> Why would artists need compensating for when people make *legal* copies?

More importantly, why should an artist be compensated when I burn my spreadsheets to a blank CD?

The stupid assumption is that the blank media will be used to store music only. A levy on "data storage" makes no sense at all.

Two important questions:

[Arcaeris]

1) What incentive does a "lifetime of income" give to songwriters to write new songs? Will amateurs be the only ones writing songs until their next big hit single?

2) What's the difference between burning a second copy of a CD FOR MYSELF and carrying that original CD between my house and my car with me? Because one used my hand and one used a computer?

Re:

[Penguinisto]

1) What incentive does a "lifetime of income" give to songwriters to write new songs? Will amateurs be the only ones writing songs until their next big hit single?

Well, to be fair, the laws of supply and demand eventually kicks in. The heirs of the folks who wrote Ragtime tunes probably wouldn't be seeing a whole lot of royalty income right now. In fact, I think Disney, Inc. and perhaps a handful of others are the only ones I've seen who are capable of zombifying their old stuff and still make some money off of it.

Given the mass of dreck we see nowadays, the incentive for the sognwriter would be to keep them thar royalty checks not only coming in, but to continu

The stupid. It burns.

[Noryungi]

Quite honestly, if (like me) you are a European, I guess it's time to kick some butt and make Europe more democratic.

Whoever that Commissioner is, I propose we all sack him. With extreme prejudice, if you see what I mean...

OK, this being said, anyone ready to open a petition against this stooopid copyright extension?

Re:

[Rob Kaper]

Sack him? It's a politician. The best we Europeans can do next time is not vote for.. oh wait, the Commission isn't a democratically elected body.

1. Sign international treaties as minister of a European country.
2. Call this activity a "Commission".
3. Have control over 2/3rd over European law effectively bypassing those pesky democratic decisions made by member states.
4. Sell out.
5. PROFIT!!!

Looks like we can end the profit meme here, someone cracked it for us.

Re:

[orzetto]

The best we Europeans can do next time is not vote for.. oh wait, the Commission isn't a democratically elected body.

True indeed, but without approval from the European Parliament [wikipedia.org] the Commission cannot do squat. That's how software patents were busted [wikipedia.org]: the commission wanted them, the parliament told them to go fornicate themselves with a pitchfork (648 to 14, that's a pretty clear vote).

And yes, you can vote [wikipedia.org] for the EU parliament.

Re:The stupid. It burns.

[alext]

McCreevy is a Commissioner for the Irish Republic. He has previous form in attempting to impose US-style software patents in the EU.

Previously Ireland finance minister, his basic position is whatever is good for big business is good for the EU.

Re:

[xaxa]

The best thing to do is probably to write to you MEP [europa.eu]. Their email and postal addresses are given. I will try and write at the weekend.

Copyright time should be reduced, not increased

[andyh3930]

If I do a days work I get paid a days wage, I don't see why it should be that much different for Musicians.

If it takes 6 months to record an album why should they still get paid for the work in 90 years? Copyright time should be reduced, not increased After this time it would become freely distributable. If the time was reduced to 7-10 years this would surely promote creativity.

However the artist should keep control if music was going to be used for other purpose other than listening (movie soundtrack or advert ) and be allowed to permit or deny such use.

This would be a fairer system all round.

Cheers Charlie...

[MosesJones]

Ruddy hell there are some people who really do give the Irish a bad name....

Charlie McCreevy [europa.eu] is an ex-Irish MP and a chartered accountant whose biggest role was as Minister for Finance in Ireland.

Currently has no registered special interests of note, but damn he has come up with a stupid proposal. Even something sensible like "until death" would have met the requirements for people living longer whereas 95 years is just about the corporations behind the people.

A Little More Info On the Ex-TD

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Charlie McCreevy is an ex-Irish MP and a chartered accountant whose biggest role was as Minister for Finance in Ireland.

McCreevy was in fact, sent off to Europe for the express purpose of exiling him from Irish Politics. Even in his own Free Market centric party, his policies were far too Thatcherite to let him continue to make his characteristically brash polemics. He gleefully accepted his "promotion" to European statesman, and his party, and indeed the country, breathed a collective sigh of relief.

McCreevy has a history of giving tax breaks and other concessions to industries and business that he "approves of". Witness his institution of a 0% tax on bets made at horse race meetings (he's a big fan of the sport). He's a supply sider with little time for anything that doesn't immediately net money i.e., fair use, hospitals, etc. He's been mentioned before on Slashdot here [slashdot.org] and here [slashdot.org]. The "loose cannon" quote is particularly apt.

Charlie McCreevy is the type of politician lobbyists love. He'll wine and dine, brunch and lunch with all manner of industry representatives and indeed has by the looks of things. Rest assured that when he finally steps down from his post (forcing him out will require tectonic pressure) the entire European Parliment, and Union, will breath a collective sigh of relief.

Lifetime of income from one thing?

[MrPerfekt]

Talk about encouraging laziness! Why should an 'artist' garner a lifetime income from a single thing? I install an OS on a server, should I be expected to get royalties for as long as that server is in operation? No, of course not, that's insane. Yet this is how recording companies, legislatures and even maybe some real artists see the world. Make once, get paid many. I guess that's par for the course in a world that makes life entirely too easy.

one-hit musicians only?

[a10_es]

if an artist is incapable of creating nothing more than a hit, is (s)he really an artist? should (s)he be able to live off of it? and why should this be limited to musical recordings only? why not ebooks or other digitally-storable artistical forms?

oh well

[OrangeTide]

Not like anyone honors the copyright anyways.

Self defeating

[Mprx]

The more ridiculous the so called "intellectual property" laws become, the faster the remaining traces of respect the average person has for them will erode. While there's a valid argument for a short copyright term being beneficial to society, 95 years will only encourage people to ignore the law altogether.

Re:Self defeating

[TheRaven64]

Mod parent up (more). I make a living from copyright, and this kind of proposal worries me. Copyright is a bargain between the creator and society. Society agrees to enforce a (limited, temporary) monopoly on my behalf, which is really great for me. In return, they get certain limited rights now and complete rights later.

Gradually, this deal has been skewed more and more in my favour (w00t). The problem is, 100% of the bargaining power is on the side of society as a whole. If I don't like the copyright terms, what can I do? Stop writing and get a real job? Wow, that would suck.

Let's look at what society really gets. Limited rights immediately? Well, kind of. Unfortunately, unscrupulous copyright holders are trying to take these away with DRM. Since governments haven't done the sensible thing, and made DRM and copyright an either-or proposition, society as a whole gets screwed and loses these short-term benefits. Well, what about the long term? They still get the works falling into the public domain, right? Well, in theory. Pop songs that were hits when my parents were at school are still under copyright. Stuff that written when my grandparents (who are all dead now) were at school is now falling into the public domain though...

Eventually, the population is going to wake up and say 'wait a second, we aren't getting anything out of this.' Eventually? Well, the last poll I saw said that around 90% of the population infringed copyright on a regular basis, so 'eventually' really means 'now.' How long does it take for something that 90% of the population think is morally acceptable to get legalised? If we, as copyright holders, don't start proposing reasonable compromises, it won't be long before the population starts to realise that copyright only exists because they agree to enforce it and decide that a fairer deal is not to enforce it at all. If that happens, then there's really not a huge amount we can do.

I dont mind lifelong copyrights...

[night_flyer]

but I think the owner, must re-register the work ever once in a while, otherwise it can revert to the public domain. its a win for Disney who dont want to lose the mouse and it would be a win for the consumer who want an out of print song\book\movie that only they care about

Terminator Chick?

[webword]

What if that chick on the new Terminator series came out with a song? I mean, she probably lives forever and stuff. By this logic, copyright should be infinite. Terminator babes deserve equality.

huh?

[apodyopsis]

Meanwhile if you invent a really cool technology that saves millions you only get payment for, what, 20 years?

Seems a little disproportionate/unfair - I mean like a good tune as much as the next person, but I don't see it having the same impact as many new inventions can. Sounds harsh if the inventor of a third world solar powered incubator, or a new catheter, or a water purification kit gets money for only 20 years whilst the writer of the crazy frog can get money for 95. What is the world coming to?

This is Getting Stupid

[whisper_jeff]

Screw it! Someone copyright the damn dictionary and all words within and stop people from writing books and songs entirely. Yes. I know that's a moronic suggestion but, at the rate things are going, it'll sound more and more logical compared to the inane crap that politicians and lobby groups are suggesting... And I work in a creative industry where protecting the rights to my work is important to me, but this is so far beyond laughable now....

In other news...

[Tuoqui]

Workers are demanding to be compensated for their work for 95 years after leaving a business because everything they do is obviously copyrighted to them.

Protect the artists? Please

[CrazyJim1]

This is to protect the recording industry.

Since when do artists deserve

[rolfwind]

a lifetime income? Can't they make enough profit off of it the first 50 or so ridiculously long years? Works often make the most money in the beginning of their life, not so many years later when it is no longer in synce with the zeitgeist that imbues so many creative products and fads.

I can't get a lifetime income based on most work I did so many years ago. Neither do others.

The purpose of copyright was to give an incentive to produce and publish material -- and have society benefit both by initially recieving it and then getting it in public domain. Enforcement costs money (police, courts, etcetera), so this time-limited monopoly was a fair arrangement.

But by no means was it to guarantee an income for life. That seems a little too much for just any random creative work when others have to make a day to day living. Not that I believe "it's for the poor starving artists!" line anyway.

WTF?

[gstoddart]

He also wishes to investigate options for new levies on blank discs, data storage and music and video players to compensate artists and copyright holders for 'legal copying when listeners burn an extra version of an album to play one at home and one in the car

And, why should they be 'compensated' for it at all? I bought the CD. By my understanding of fair use, I'm fscking allowed to do that.

Just because they want to convince people that they should get paid for media/place shifting, doesn't actually make

NINETY-FIVE Years?!?

[Digital Vomit]

This is in "dog years" right?

Dadada

[a whoabot]

Would this apply in the UK?

Aren't some of the Beatles' earliest recordings going to be entering the public domain very soon unless the copyright terms are extended?

Oblivious to the actual economics

[91degrees]

If it doesn't make a lifetime worth of income in the first year, it's very unlikely any publisher will bother with a work after a few years. If it hasn't made a tidy sum to invest in 50 years then it's been out of print for most of them.

How many works are there that are over 14 years old, still generating royalties, and have not made enough money for the creator that they can comfortably retire for the next 95 years?

When you think about it...

[gnasher719]

Many different points.

1. The purpose of copyright is not to give someone a life-long income, the purpose is to give people incentives to create (in this case musical) works, which in turn helps society as a whole. I would like to see how 95 years instead of 50 years copyright will cause more music to be created.

2. If the purpose is to give a life-long income to composers and musicians, then surely record companies and other companies should be excluded. So lets say: 95 years of copyright for the co

Lifetime income?

[arthurh3535]

"lifetime income to artists who recorded hits in their late teens or early twenties, he said."????

When does everyone else get to have lifetime income too? And this only includes productions that were recorded way back when. There is nothing stopping said artist from re-recording a newer version of that hit song (best of...) that will have the same copyright protections.

Why do artists and government officials think that Copyright means 'money for forever?'

WHAT?

[Card]

People are living longer and 50 years of copyright protection no longer give lifetime income to artists who recorded hits in their late teens or early twenties

The commissioner is either ignorant or lying. I don't know which one is worse.

The chosen term was 70 years from the death of the author (post mortem auctoris) for authors' rights (Art. 1), longer than the 50 year post mortem auctoris term required by the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (Art. 7.1 Berne Convention). (Wikipedia [wikipedia.org])

He should mean that the artists' children can enjoy the royalties for mere 50 years after their parent has died. Cry me a river.

More Than Greed

[Nom du Keyboard]

This is more than Greed. It's outright theft of the Public Domain. PD is gone for the rest of the lives of everyone living now - which is no different than forever.

Back when the USA was first being founded, copyrights were eternal in Europe. America thought this was a Bad Idea, and put the words "secure for a limited term" into its founding document to stop this abuse. Europe eventually agreed, and eternal copyrights ended.

But now, with a pansy Supreme Court that decides that whatever a bought-off Congress calls a "limited term" they're just fine with, we're headed straight back to the eternal copyright, because nobody remembers any longer just why that was such a bad idea in the first place.

And then its a game of ping-pong, with the very same copyright lobby ratcheting the length of time up one place, than then screaming their heads off that everywhere else isn't "up to date" with "artist protections." Wash - Rinse - Repeat. And we're all being screwed over by it.

The Worst Sin Of All Here

[Nom du Keyboard]

The very worst sin of all here is the extending of already existing copyrights. This does nothing to encourage of that work, which was already created under the old copyright terms. This simply says, "Give more money to the company who now owns the copyright, because they'll use some of it to contribute to my next reelection campaign."

More than anything else to stand up against is: NO EXTENSIONS OF EXISTING COPYRIGHT TERMS!

Re:Trolling

[KublaiKhan]

I'm copyrighting(c) the use of the word copyright(c). Everyone who uses the word copyright(c) must put a little copyright(c) (c) after it, and give me $.05 for each instance.

I'm also copyrighting(c) the word copyleft(c), so you Gnu folks won't get away with it either.

And the copyright(c) (c) notation? Yep, copyrighting(c) that too.

This post copyright(c) me, 2008.

You FAIL

[Mr. Underbridge]

I hereby copyright Trolling. Nobody is allowed to troll without my permission. License fees start at 100 BILLION dollars.

Sorry punk. You can only copyright your own troll posts. Provided the act of trolling weren't patented, which it is, by me.

My lawyers will be in touch.

Sincerely,

Mr. Underbridge

Resident Troll