
EU votes to extend music copyright to 70 years - sambeau
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14829373
======
EGreg
Are musicians not incentivized enough in Europe? Or are we trying to
incentivize music creation in 1950s and 60s? :P

I can see the court in Brussels going, "Mm, yes. I know what will motivate
them to create better music! We'll make sure they own it when they are 105
years old! There's just too little good music these days, and this will make
all the difference."

Joking. Obviously it's special interests pushing to make money from their
1950s creations after having been incentivized enough to make them in the
first place, at the expense of the public.

------
mhansen
Why? To better incentivize people to make music in the 1940s and 50s?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
It also means You can trust your music will be your own, for most of your
life.

~~~
watchandwait
"Your music" is just a remix of sounds and words from earlier artists.
Extending copyright like this stifles innovation and future creativity.

~~~
electromagnetic
Please explain this nonsensical argument. How does the Rolling Stones holding
the copyright to Paint It Black stifle someone else's innovation and
creativity? Seriously. Innovation and creativity go with being original, and
you're encouraging being derivative.

Look at Disney and don't tell me that a lack of copyright makes creativity. A
lack of copyright just enables corporations to mass produce drivel from non-
copyrighted works and cut out the talented people. Disney is barely a step
away from just an algorithm that creates film scripts from Brothers Grimm
stories.

------
acg
An illustration of why some of the software industry wants to be more like the
music industry and why the music industry doesn't want to be like the software
industry.

Imagine if you were still making money off a program you wrote in 1960. Almost
inconceivable in any mass market.

~~~
buster
Let alone that most people that made popular music 50 years ago are dead
nowadays. It's not the original artist who gets the money but some persons
that didn't even work for it!!

~~~
lhnz
They bought the license. Are business deals not work? Do you need proximity to
the creation to profit from it?

~~~
bluedanieru
Can you make a convincing argument that copyright ought to be transferable in
the first place? I'm not certain it shouldn't, but this thread has made me
realize I've never heard a good reason for it.

~~~
notahacker
Liquidity for creators, without which some wouldn't have the time and money
needed to create and publicise their creation. Its analogous to being allowed
to sell [in part or whole] the ownership of your startup before accruing any
profit.

~~~
nitrogen
Still, those who provide liquidity for creators should not be able to profit
from a work any longer than the original creator would have, given the same
resources. In other words, copyright should expire after the same fixed amount
of time, whether it's owned by a person, an estate, or a corporation.

------
benjoffe
What would happen to music that is currently say 60 years old? That would have
been copyright-free for 10 years and all of a sudden it is under copyright
again?

~~~
electromagnetic
Once the copyright has lapsed, it has lapsed. Unless they did something
special beyond simply extending the period then there's no way to renew the
copyright.

~~~
jrmg
I'm not sure about this case, but that's not always been true everywhere,
historically. In the UK, at least, when books were extended to life + 70 that
was retroactive for books originally published there. It was not retroactive
in the USA, however (and more sensibly, I would say - whatever your views on
term extension).

This has affected me and my business in the past - see
[http://blog.th.ingsmadeoutofotherthin.gs/eucalyptus-
availabl...](http://blog.th.ingsmadeoutofotherthin.gs/eucalyptus-available-
again) (halfway down, "A Note on Copyright" has an explanation of this
oddity).

~~~
electromagnetic
That's actually quite the oddity. It seems to go against conventional wisdom
(but then when has the British Government done anything wise lately?) and
copyright law itself in that once copyright lapses it is supposed to be non-
ownable from that point on.

------
epscylonb
The pension argument is lame, if a performer wants a pension they should do
what everybody else does, save for it.

~~~
abrahamsen
Yes, "people will still play my present music in 60 years" is not something I
would recommend as your pension plan.

~~~
sixtofour
While it's not necessarily a solid plan, if your music attained popularity,
it's not unreasonable to think it will be played regularly in sixty years.

Here in Denver (2M population in the larger metro area) there are at least:

\- One AM swing/standards station (Benny Goodman etc) playing music from the
thirties to the sixties.

\- Two FM oldies stations, one of which is also AM, playing music from the
fifties to the seventies.

\- Two primarily classic rock FM stations and one progressive station that
sits partly in their Venn diagram, playing music from the sixties to the
eighties.

\- A public FM station that plays folk/bluegrass/world, back to the thirties.

That's not to say that the retirement plan is any more solid than an NBA
career, but the music itself, if it once had traction, will likely be played
for a long time.

------
noonespecial
If you ever happen to find yourself wondering if copyrights are about to be
extended again, just remember, The Beatles and Mickey Mouse will _never_ be
entering the public domain. Either of these events about to occur? Dude,
you're getting an extension.

------
waitwhat
How long until patents never expire either?

~~~
sudont
We shouldn't confuse causation with correlation, but the slowing of "big"
ideas is roughly correlated with the outer limit of the patent age. 1900 seems
archaic, but 1960 still seems relevant (Minus those pesky, non-consumption-
friendly social movements). Cars, telecommunications, miniskirts. It's like
we're seeing our culture enthrone its mores in the way Americans know best:
litigation, and the legal system. Our culture is slowing down in some sense,
but in reality it's just becoming "legitimate" and stable.

For example: where's the big new music scene? It's not because there's no
musical avenues left to investigate. It's because our culture is so laden with
ideas, we're incapable of propagating new ones into the mainstream. Why not an
exploration into pure acoustic tonality, a la Yoshida Brothers? Because our
culture is not capable of accepting it. We've become static. Hell, the whole
concept of a "hipster" was in thrifting old, expired cultures. The vogue was
in retro. Bruce Sterling, eat your heart out.

So, to answer your question: if we don't see any major cultural revolutions?
Soon, but genesis will always be around 1900-1960.

If we get cyborgs and AI? Never. It would be like trying to rehash ragtime.
Eventually patents will melt away, and reform at the beginning of the new age.

 _Basically_ : patents are the cultural realization that old ideas are still
valid and commercially viable today. I don't like that, but there it is.

~~~
NolF
What you describe is largely a Red and Blue ocean issue
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ocean_Strategy>

------
sylvinus
I can't stop being amazed at how powerful those lobbies are.

~~~
aw3c2
The idea of free music is non-existent in the minds of most people. Pretty
much all our musical "culture history" is those who were commercially
successful (history of the winners). In Germany pretty much all you hear on
the radio is music industry.

I think people would not even know how to handle it if eg the Beatles
recordings would suddenly be free. They would probably still buy CDs in the
stores.

~~~
bluedanieru
I fail to see how this holds any water at all, considering that music _is_
free for a substantial number of people.

~~~
aw3c2
Sorry, I was being unclear. I meant music that is free and legal to download
and share.

------
e_proxus
Just think about all the now 50-year old music that would become parts of
mash-ups and remixes everywhere, creating a lot of new cool music. Now this
just won't happen. :-(

------
bediger
Does the legal justification for copyright differ in the EU vs the USA? In the
USA, the nominal basis is to give a creator a monopoly over reproduction for a
time, to encourage that creator to make more.

~~~
waitwhat
That might have been true about the USA once upon a time, but ...

 _The [Copyright Term Extension] Act extended these terms to life of the
author plus 70 years and for works of corporate authorship to 120 years after
creation or 95 years after publication, whichever endpoint is earlier._

\-- <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act>

I'm not sure that extending copyright from lifetime+50years to
lifetime+70years was really aimed at encouraging creators to create more.

~~~
EdiX
It has also been regularly extended every time Mickey Mouse was about to enter
public domain, the realistic expectation is that copyright in the USA will
never expire.

~~~
waitwhat
I actually googled for "Mickey Mouse protection act" to find the name of the
legislation.

Steamboat Willy was released in 1928, so expect the next extension in around
ten years time.

There have only been 3 Mickey Mouse cartoons in the last 56 years and the
cynic in me suspects that they are only being made to boost their moral
justification for continually extending the copyright on the character.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mickey_Mouse_cartoons>

~~~
waitwhat
And maybe I was a touch too cynical. If she were here, my niece would be
jumping about and down right now to remind me about
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Mouse_Clubhouse> in which Mickey has had
a starring role for years.

------
iwwr
What music from the 1940es is such a great moneymaker today that copyright
holders can't bear to lose distribution privileges? Rarely are even 2 year old
tunes really big sellers.

~~~
demallien
From the 40s, I don't know, but that's not really the question. Before this
vote, the limit was set at 50 years, which meant that all those bands from the
1960s, who _are_ still making decent money, would start to lose income. Think
the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, the Supremes, Bob Dylan.

Of course, I don't feel terribly much sympathy for them - they've all lived
lives of privilege that I will probably never know, and I don't see why they
should be able to continue making even more money from something they did half
a century ago.

I wouldn't mind so much, except that in the music world, the idea of a derived
work has received such a broad definition by the legal system. I mean, I don't
think it unreasonable that the Beatles should continue to receive money for
copies of _their_ performance of Hey Jude, but why can't another artist do a
cover without having to pay them, 50 years down the track? IP was supposed to
aid creative expression, not stifle it!

~~~
epo
"IP was supposed to aid creative expression, not stifle it!" IP is supposed to
benefit creators not plagiarists. Copying someone elses' work is not creative
expression.

~~~
toyg
Tell that to Walt Disney -- last I checked, he built his fortune by
"plagiarizing" out-of-copyright stories. And what about all those movies based
on Wells, Verne, Conan-Doyle, Christie, Austen? One of the most successful
songs ever, in economic terms, is "Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harum: a
blatant riff on two compositions by Bach. The likes of Rolling Stones and Eric
Clapton would have gone nowhere without the ability to ransack the humongous
catalogue of blues classics -- if the original black musicians and composers
had enjoyed modern copyright terms, you wouldn't have had any of that. Same
for Bob Dylan and folk songs.

All art is derivative, originality is a myth.

~~~
robert-boehnke
To quote Lawrence Lessig, "No one can do to the Disney Corporation what Walt
Disney did to the Brothers Grimm."

~~~
electromagnetic
It's important to note it isn't just Walt who raped the Brothers Grimm, but
the entire corporation has the mentality of pillaging myth and legend like
it's their 90 year old grandma's jewellery box and they need another hit of
meth.

~~~
jemfinch
Pillaging? There's absolutely nothing _wrong_ with giving a new voice to
stories that have become part of our cultural consciousness. That's precisely
how cultures evolve. We build upon the creations of those who went before us,
adding our own unique touches and flourishes.

The only pillaging here is being done by politicians and lobbyists who are
preventing new developments from being adapted and evolved. The creative
contribution of Hendrix's recording of "All Along the Watchtower" is something
many of us appreciate, but we've also seen glimpses into what sort of
creations can be made with it (e.g., Battlestar Galactica's adaptation at the
end of Season 3) and we're now being denied that by decisions like these.

~~~
electromagnetic
You're discussing a problem with the licencing price for a copyrighted work
and suggesting that it being out of copyright is best for all parties. It
would be more prudent to resolve the licencing issue so that artists can build
upon others work and net the original artist more money.

The problem is that the music industry is too engrossed with its 'potential
profits' that it can't find any 'actual profits'. They'll sell the licence to
a 10 second segment of a song for a million dollars, which no one will buy and
the record will get more obscure and less in demand just because the licencee
could make huge money and their work is integral on that licence.

This could be resolved simply by saying the licence fee is $1 per unit sold
per year. A song that sells a million copies in its first year maybe should
have a licence fee of a million dollars for valid reasons. A 40 year old
recording that shipped 10 units last month, definitely isn't worth a million,
and $120 in a licence fee is probably the most money the artist or studio has
seen from it in a long time.

I'm sorry, but the abolition of slavery took a civil war to resolve and it
didn't have nearly as much money entangled in it as the copyright industry
does. So unless The Pirate Bay launches an army, I don't think copyright is
going anywhere. It would be more commendable to actually get the clauses
exploited by corporations for (and sometimes against) their own gain fixed.

~~~
epscylonb
You are assuming that perpetual copyright is beneficial to society.

Time limited copyright (say 10 years) almost certainly is beneficial,
perpetual copyright is harmful both culturally and in the long run
economically.

~~~
electromagnetic
No in fact I am not, and have said multiple times I am not in favour of
perpetual copyright.

Perpetual copyright on copyrights as they are today would cause a great amount
of work to be lost due to the owners greed and stupidity.

As per my suggestion on licencing a work could become free-use much sooner
than the copyright period expires. Anything with no units shipped would mean
its a free license.

As I've said elsewhere, and originally, I'm in favour of 20 years and
extensions for derivative works, and perhaps then only on the right to produce
derivatives and on no other rights like reproduction.

~~~
epscylonb
I think we are basically on the same page.

Copyright should be granted for free for a short amount of time.

Once that is up, the copyright holder should have the option of extending the
copyright. They should be made to pay for this right, since the extension of
the copyright only really benefits them.

This would allow copyright holders to keep a hold of stuff that is obviously
profitable, at the same time the vast majority of stuff would enter the public
domain.

------
markkat
It would be interesting if for new laws, there were some sort of judicial
opinion that could state to their best of their ability what the purpose of
the law was.

i.e. Some legislators write a law, then pass it to a panel of judges, the
judges attach a note indicating what they determined the purpose of the law
was, and then the law went on for a vote. The opinion wouldn't have any legal
effect, but it might provide for a bit more honesty.

------
tybris
Apart from whether or not this is fair, I really hate the EU taking any part
in this. I know their authority is not well-defined, but in my view they are
overreaching. I've flipped from pro-EU to anti-EU on my voting agenda.

------
AdamJlovell
It logically follows that the legislative body who produced this law would
also have dreamed up the EU's anti-cookie law. It seems that Brussels
sincerely doesn't understand the current role of technology in the world. It
makes no sense to pass a law that will extend the enforcement period of a law
that is relatively unenforceable today. Increasing the persons, actions or
time-period to which a law applies, also increases the potential "criminal
class" in the application of that law. This is effect these laws have/or will
have on previously innocent populations.In this case a big portion of that
population are the technology innovators. I have not spent anytime living in
Europe, or paying attention to their pop-culture, but I find that this is a
disturbing phenomenon. I imagine that if these laws have been able to pass
through the EU legislature, they must somehow fit into a larger trend in
European political culture. If these two laws are any indicator, I believe
that they won't be the last to deter tech innovation and opportunity in Europe

