EU Proposal Would Extend Music Copyrights to 95 Years

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on February 15, 2008 - 10:00am.

Brussels - The European Union has proposed extending copyright terms for musicians in its member countries from 50 to 95 years, with European Commissioner for internal market and services Charlie McCreevy arguing that, otherwise, some older performers may lose royalties from their works before they are even dead. "If nothing is done, thousands of European performers who recorded in the late 1950s and 1960s will lose all of their airplay royalties over the next 10 years," said McCreevy.

The proposal, which would bring European Union copyright terms more in line with their U.S. counterparts, must first be approved by both the European Union and European Parliament.

Related Links:
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http://tinyurl.com/2qg9gm (CNET)

Published in DMW Daily, February 15, 2008

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Comments

OK, so copyrights let

Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on February 15, 2008 - 12:16pm.

OK, so copyrights let performers live off of work done 70-100 years earlier. Why not be consistent and make patents last the same amount of time. Why should anyone bother to invent something that has a patent life of only 20 years (and many of those may be taken up just getting it to market), when they can do something else and get a copyright for a lifetime? Is this the message we want to send to our societies? Let's at least be consistent, either way. A copied 'generic' drug, or copy of an old invention, can come out soon and is viewed as a societal benefit even if the inventor is still alive and starving; a copied performance, meanwhile, is not a benefit but a crime - maybe that's why many people just decide to live without it. Something here doesn't pass the fairness test!