EU Proposes Retroactive Copyright Extension

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevy has unveiled a plan to retroactively extend musical copyrights by 45 years, which would make EU musical copyrights last 95 years total. Why? They're worried that musicians won't continue to collect royalties when they retire and this will give them an additional 45 years during which they won't have to produce any new music. Perhaps the only good point is that the retroactive extensions won't take effect for any works which aren't marketed in the first year after the extension. Additionally, while there are many non-musical retirees wishing they could get paid for 95 years after they finish working, McCreevy has not announced any new plans to help them."

Who really gets paid?

[clang_jangle (975789)]

Plain old "musicians" rarely recieve royalties; royalties are generally paid to songwriters and publishers. Of course usually those royalties end up getting paid to the Big Media companies that manage to obtain ownership of the copyrights and publishing, not to the artists. But "think of the poor, aging artists!" probably elicits a bit more sympathy than "think of the record companies!".

Re:Who really gets paid?

[TRRosen (720617)]

Exactly. Artists never get any money from royalties after the first few years because the labels take most of it through creative bookkeeping. The artists only get money when there's a lot coming in.

Add to that the fact that most new artists lose all there copyrights to the labels by contract and you'll find the only ones not getting screwed by the extension is the labels. Infact for the most part many artists will lose more money since the labels "own" most of their songs they will have to pay royalties to the labels every time the perform them!!!

Re:Who really gets paid?

[Godji (957148)]

Who the hell modded you funny of all things?

Who really gets paid?

[symbolset (646467)]

Here's a novel idea: abolish copyright. [abolishcopyright.com]. We should act now before this gets even more dumb.

Re:Who really gets paid?

[theheadlessrabbit (1022587)]

but without copyright, the creative commons and GPL wouldn't work, these things rely on copyright law.

personally, have no problem with an automatic 14 year copyright term being applied to any creative endeavor, hell, maybe even throw in a one-time-only 14 year extension for a fee. but after that, everything should enter public domain.

I can't be the 1st person to think of this system...

Re:Who really gets paid?

[CRCulver (715279)]

but without copyright, the creative commons and GPL wouldn't work, these things rely on copyright law.

If there were no copyright of software, RMS would have never needed to create the GPL to begin with. It's well documentation that through the GPL Stallman was only trying to restore the state of affairs that existed before copyright on code became an issue.

Re:Who really gets paid?

[robbak (775424)]

Interesting point: One of the reasons for copyrights (and patents too) is to reduce reliance on trade secrets. Reveal your secrets and get (limited) government protection for them.

Remembering things like that can make patents and copyrights make sense. Not the current implementations, mind you.....

(I'm commenting a bit much in this discussion)

Re:Who really gets paid?

[CRCulver (715279)]

Artists should continue to receive compensation for their creations for as long as people are enjoying them?

Why? Copyright is not some kind of inalienable natural right. It was never even thought up until a couple of hundred years ago. In ancient Rome, when poets' recitations were transcribed, mass-copied by amanuenses, and sold in the marketplace, they never saw a dime in royalties, but it didn't bother them. The only protest we hear from antiquity is when Martial lampooned a talentless aristocrat who was putting his own name on copies of Martial's verse. The American Founding Fathers enshrined copyright in law because they thought it was good for the public, not because people have some absolute right to it. And the concept is very eurocentric, for outside the West, to this very day, copyright makes absolutely no sense. Try explaining to a person in Eastern Europe, Asia, or South America that they are doing something wrong by downloading or copying a CD, and they will look at you like you're a lunatic.

Re:Who really gets paid?

[robbak (775424)]

If you create something, you have a choice whether to show somebody else. You have the choice to distribute it, or not to distribute it.

Once you give a copy to somebody else, then, for all intents and purposes, you no longer have any control over it.

Copyright gives you an artificial limited monopoly over distribution - nothing more - simply because this encourages persons to create and distribute works. Once works have been distributed, copyright has done its work. It is then a liability to society.

Copyright's purpose is to increase the amount of works in the public domain. Anything that reduces the flow of works to the public domain (like copyright extensions) is against the purpose of copyright.

(With regard to software - for any protection under copyright, I believe that the source code for the work should have to be released. Otherwise, copyright makes no sense, as the works have very limited use when they hit the public domain.)

Re:Who really gets paid?

[Potor (658520)]

Math may be creative in the sense of thinking of new approaches, etc., but I would hold that this creative process only leads to discoveries, not creations. In other words, something that was already there, waiting to be discovered, a truth as you call it. That's different than artistic creation, which does add something that was not there in the first place.

Re:Who really gets paid?

[Potor (658520)]

You'll note I said nothing about copyright in my post: I suspect we're on the same page there (i.e., I think this proposed plan is insane).

As a scientific realist, I simply don't want art and science to be seen as aiming at the same end. But anyway, the effects of certain notes will always end in unpredicable results, since the goal is to make people react, and nobody knows how anyone will react. If you read the reviews linked in my sig, you'll discover I have no idea how anyone can listen to top 40 music, and yet that music is made precisely to be universally loved. Nevertheless, it's not, and thus it is a good example of the unpredictability of musical effects.

On the other hand, the effects that science strives for do not depend on subjective reaction, and thus, at the level of their aim, are predictable, reproduceable, etc.

So, that is the basis for difference between the two. And thus, whereas the scientist is discovering what is already there (and hence universal), the artist is creating something new - and to that extent offers something novel to the world. Copyright, for better or for worse, is designed to protect and stimulate that use of the notes and scales (etc.) already in the public domain, just as patents are to stimulate and protect commerical applications of scientific discoveries.

Re:Who really gets paid?

[Znork (31774)]

for as long as people are enjoying them

Why? Chairmakers don't receive compensations for as long as people are enjoying their chairs. Builders don't receive compensation for as long as people enjoy their houses.

How about this; people get paid for working, and the state interfering in the market to create monopolies favouring certain classes of work is a particularly bad idea.

If you want to argue for why certain groups need extra support, be intellectually honest and handle it as an ordinary welfare system. If you think creative work is particularly heavy and dangerous, or particularly valuable to society, perhaps they should get a lower retirement age? Argue the case and fund it through ordinary state budgets, not hidden away in the uncounted taxation of intellectual monopoly rights.

Enforce it how?

[damburger (981828)]

They can claim copyright for a bazillion years, still won't address the issue that it is impossible to enforce without crushing peoples freedom of speech. Knowing the EU, which is every bit as much a tool of business as the US government, they will do exactly that.

Re:Enforce it how?

[Per Wigren (5315)]

Stop complaining about the "anti-americanism". Personally I'm not at all against Americans but very much against American politics (black curtain authorian corporatism and fear mongering). Except for a few nutcases I'm pretty sure that applies to most people you call "anti-american". Putting aside the non-stop war mongering, the biggest reason is that USA (the government, not the people) send armies of lobbyists to Europe trying to close down our freedoms to chase ghosts.

This law proposal is an obvious result of heavy American lobbyism, and it's just an example out of thousands. Yes, I blame European politicians just as much (if not more) for falling into the trap.

Thank you for stopping communism, bla bla bla, in the past. Whatever. That doesn't change what is happening right now.

I know a lot of Americans and they are all fantastic persons. It's all about the government and politics, not the people.

The summary overlooked the other reason

[antifoidulus (807088)]

since if music is freely available to everyone, the government cannot tax the sales or the income of the artist.

Re:The summary overlooked the other reason

[by Anonymous Coward]

I reside in the European Union and listen mainly to recordings of contemporary art music that were produced with the aid of state subsidies, since they probably wouldn't be profitable on their own. Even if the government taxes the sale of the CD, it's still a net loss for them. Governments here have no qualm with offering free music. Their support of the arts is one thing that keeps quality of life constantly high here.

50 years wasn't long enough?!?

[feedayeen (1322473)]

With a 50 year long copyright, if I produced a song as a teenager, I would still own the rights even after the time that I am eligible for my pension. With a 95 year long copyright, if I produced a song, the recording industry would be profiting off of my works for decades after I am dead.

No pensions?

[Zog The Undeniable (632031)]

So they should have invested some of the money while they were making it, instead of spending it on Colombian marching powder, groupies and hotel room repairs.

Everyone else has to save for a pension or end up on income support. Why not musicians?

Re:What's different from physical property though?

[TorKlingberg (599697)]

The concept of "intellectual property" is the problem. The phrase was made up to make it seem like a right rather than a temporary government granted monopoly.

Re:What's different from physical property though?

[Baldur_of_Asgard (854321)]

Difference 1: If I graze my cattle on your ranch, you will not be able to make use of your ranch - but if I sing a song that you wrote, you will still be able to sing that song.

Difference 2: If you sell me your ranch, the ranch is mine to do with as I please. If you sell me your song, shouldn't the song be mine to do with as I please? After some profitability, songs and other intellectual property should go into the public domain, especially if a large portion of the public have paid for it.

Re:What's different from physical property though?

[theheadlessrabbit (1022587)]

the difference is, if i take your physical property, you have less.

if i take your intellectual property, you lose nothing.

bytes are not atoms.

Re:What's different from physical property though?

[silentbozo (542534)]

I don't know how it is where you are, but physical property here in the US is taxed apart from the income you earn from that income.

In other words, even if the land is just sitting there, you still get taxed on it. If you don't pay the tax, the government seizes the property and sells it off to someone who will. Remember, this is completely apart from the income tax applied to any revenue you generate from the property, whether it's from building a house and renting it out, farming it, grazing animals on it, or paving it over and charging people to park on it.

There is no double standard because intellectual "property" isn't real property. There's a lot of impetus to treat it that way because there are a lot of business models built on being able to buy, sell, rent, and re-exploit movies, music, and writing, completely ignoring the fact that:

1. While they like to treat it as real property, real property doesn't expire after a set period of time. Anyone stupid enough to build a business model assuming an asset that is supposed to become free after a set period of time is going to retain value forever deserves to lose their investment.

2. The ability to control the property exclusively is a monopoly (generally a bad thing) granted by the government, as a trade off - we give you a monopoly for the time being, in exchange for you making the property available to the public, and ultimately part of the public domain when the monopoly ends.

3. Traditionally, there was no such thing as "intellectual property". If you saw some something cool and wanted your own copy, you'd copy it or hire someone to make you a copy. If you heard a great story, you'd retell it. This is why guilds formed - to protect "guild secrets", and create a competitive advantage for guild members. The problem is, anyone who was really innovative would more often than not, refuse to share their new process, forcing other people to have to rediscover the secret, a horrible waste of time and energy. To get rid of this waste, promote innovation, and enable those innovations to become public so that they're not lost, the idea of patents and copyrights was born.

4. Patents and copyrights are used today to print money, quash innovation by other people, and bribe politicians to extend monopolies (generally a bad thing) indefinitely, at the expense of the public. Because they don't have to pay property tax, they can sit indefinitely on IP and just sue anyone who starts making money on something that does or might infringe on it. You should either get a limited monopoly to exploit your work, or if you want to hold onto it forever, you should be required to pay property taxes on it as a royalty to the public who are guaranteeing your monopoly. Consider all the governmental resources that have been diverted by private parties to enforcing ever longer copyrights in court, and on the streets.

So to answer your question, there's a huge difference between how IP and real property are treated. There is no double standard. The fact that you think there is one is a strong indication of how badly the public has been misled about how copyrights and patents are supposed to work.

Re:What's different from physical property though?

[seifried (12921)]

Actually you don't own your property in the truest sense of the word (yes technically I acknowledge that you own and possibly have possession of it). Ultimately the government owns your land. Just stop paying the land or property taxes and this point will be made abundantly clear. Now if a copyright holder had to pay a yearly fee based on the value (either intrinsic, or perhaps market or realized, something along those lines) of the work in question to keep the copyright I'd be a lot more supportive of copyright laws.

Re:Retroactive ?

[jabuzz (182671)]

No it means that it applies to works that are already in existence. So for example I own a number of audio books of classic works. The words spoken by the actors on the CD's are long out of copyright. However the recording itself has a 50 year term. When I purchased that audio book I entered into a contract, part of which was based on the fact that the copyright in the recording would expire within my lifetime.

This proposal would change the existing contract of purchase to make me materially worse off. This makes it retroactive.

This proposal however has to get approval from all 27 member countries, which is a tall order given that some, such as the UK have expressed previously that they saw no reason to extend copyrights on recordings.

Re:The Plan!

[robbak (775424)]

Just an addendum: You can use the music to "Happy Birthday" - that is a folk tune, and anonymous' copyrights have expired. (Just be sure to credit the music under the name of that forgotten folk tune.)

All that it copyrighted are the words. All 5 of them:
"Happy birthday to you... dear _________"

How ingenious.