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EU votes to extend music copyright to 70 years
- waitwhat 15y agoHow long until patents never expire either?
- sudont 15y agoWe 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 15y agoWhat you describe is largely a Red and Blue ocean issue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ocean_Strategy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ocean_Strategy
- iwwr 15y agoWhat 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.
- revorad 15y agoDon't know about the 40's but I expect the Beatles still sell a lot.
- demallien 15y agoFrom 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!
- michael_dorfman 15y agoI 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! This extension only applies to their recordings (as performers). The songwriting copyright is already set at 70 years, so nothing is changing there.
- epo 15y ago"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.
- bediger 15y agoDoes 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 15y agoThat 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 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 15y agoIt 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 15y agoI 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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mickey_Mouse_cartoons
- waitwhat 15y agoAnd 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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Mouse_Clubhouse in which Mickey has had a starring role for years.
- mhansen 15y agoWhy? To better incentivize people to make music in the 1940s and 50s?
- JoeAltmaier 15y agoIt also means You can trust your music will be your own, for most of your life.
- ArcticCelt 15y agoIn that case force labels to revert 100% of the rights back to the original creators after 25 years. We will see how much those so called "artist rights lobbyist" work for that one.
- watchandwait 15y ago"Your music" is just a remix of sounds and words from earlier artists. Extending copyright like this stifles innovation and future creativity.
- electromagnetic 15y agoPlease 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.
- Peaker 15y agoThere's no need for retro-activity here. It necessarily does not give any incentive for the works for which it applies, while still costing society the same high price.
- nextparadigms 15y ago
- benjoffe 15y agoWhat 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 15y agoOnce 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 15y agoI'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-available-again http://blog.th.ingsmadeoutofotherthin.gs/eucalyptus-availabl... (halfway down, "A Note on Copyright" has an explanation of this oddity).
- electromagnetic 15y agoThat'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.
- acg 15y agoAn 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 15y agoLet 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 15y agoThey bought the license. Are business deals not work? Do you need proximity to the creation to profit from it?
- buster 15y agoYou should, yes.
- bluedanieru 15y agoCan 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 15y agoLiquidity 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 15y agoStill, 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.
- e_proxus 15y agoJust 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. :-(
- markkat 15y agoIt 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.
- sylvinus 15y agoI can't stop being amazed at how powerful those lobbies are.
- aw3c2 15y agoThe 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 15y agoI fail to see how this holds any water at all, considering that music is free for a substantial number of people.
- aw3c2 15y agoSorry, I was being unclear. I meant music that is free and legal to download and share.
- epscylonb 15y agoThe pension argument is lame, if a performer wants a pension they should do what everybody else does, save for it.
- abrahamsen 15y agoYes, "people will still play my present music in 60 years" is not something I would recommend as your pension plan.
- sixtofour 15y agoWhile 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.
- alan-crowe 15y agoI remember listening to a documentary which interviewed the second tier of jazz, swing, and big-band musicians from the 1940's and 1950's. Along came the 1960's and rock and pop and they were sore out of luck. The top tier could still scrap a living, but not the rest. Isn't that narrowing down, to a few super-stars who stand the test of time, quite typical? There must be lots of rock musicians from the 1970's who I cannot now remember and will never bother to listen to. Musicians need to put some of their current income into a pension plan. They cannot expect to get royalties when they are old, whatever the duration of copyright.
- tybris 15y agoApart 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 15y agoIt 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
- EGreg 15y agoAre 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.
- noonespecial 15y agoIf 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.