“Singers and musicians should earn royalty fees for 95 years — almost double the current 50-year limit, a European Union official said Thursday as he promised to draft new copyright protection rules,” The Associated Press reports.
“‘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 ten years,’ said EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevy, the union’s internal market chief. ‘These royalties are often their sole pension,'” AP reports.
“The EU executive also wants to look again at reforming copyright levies charged 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,” AP reports. “The commissioner said he did not want to scrap the charges but wanted to see how realistic it was to charge them on all equipment.”
“Most European countries charge copyright levies, which add €10 (US$14.59) to the cost of an 8 gigabyte MP3 player in Finland, €7 (US$10.21) in France and €2.56 (US$3.73) in Germany, manufacturers’ group EICTA says,” AP reports.
“Composers’ representatives say these charges are exaggerated. Copyright levies, totaling €555 million (US$657 million) in 2005, are collected by artists’ rights groups who distribute them to music and film copyright holders, performers and record companies,” AP reports.
“In some countries, a portion of the money also supports cultural projects, from festivals to scholarships,” AP reports. “The levies are charged and paid to artists in 19 of the EU’s 25 nations. None are charged in Britain, Ireland or Cyprus, and different plans exist in Greece, Luxembourg and Malta.”
Full article here.
So, if you buy an iPod and only use it for classical music, it’s okay that you’re charged a tax in order to pay a bunch of pop tarts? Or if you buy a hard drive which will be not be used to store music or video information, you should still pay a tax to so-called artists? If you buy a pack of blank discs that you will be using to backup photos of your kids, you should still be charged a tax so that musicians get paid? How many questions with the obvious answer of “no” can we construct?
This is as horrible a concept as Microsoft agreeing to pay Universal $1 for every Zune sold. Regardless of the fact that Universal is now just $3 richer, there is no guarantee that all three Zunes sold will have even one bit of Universal content on them, yet Universal still gets paid. Paid for nothing. Nice work if you can get it force it down people’s throats, we guess.
As for these “copyright levies,” we’re so sure that 100% of the money will find its way to the proper parties. Drip, drip…
People are getting reamed with ill-conceived, unfair, little-bit-here/little-bit-there taxes and fees instituted, frankly, by people who couldn’t cut it in the real world, so they ran for office and got elected by people who are too busy and/or too lazy to pay close enough attention (or got appointed by other people who couldn’t cut it in the real world). When is enough enough?
Copyright was meant to give creators a temporary monopoly on their creations to encourage ingenuity but more importantly to secure the ability of the people to freely explore and share their common culture after that temporary monopoly was over. 95 years is absurd because no rights holder should be able to hold any aspect of our culture hostage for that long. It should be 19 years.
A friend of mine co-wrote “minute by minute” with the Doobie Brothers. He’s all grown up now and ready to retire and the royalties from that song is the gift that just keeps on giving. Anytime that song is played, anywhere in the world, whether it’s played in an airport or elevator or muzak (which happens to make you a LOT of money)… he gets a check. I hope he keeps making a ton of cash off of that song, and that his daughter does after he’s gone. She’s going to inherit everything else of his, why not his music legacy also?
If I created a new way to travel, or if I perfected teletransportation, I would own it and could keep it to myself if I so choose. But if I sell it I can only make $$ on it for 50 years? Why does the public domain get ownership of ideas and art after 50 years? The public didn’t create it.
Does the public domain naturally take ownership of Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpieces of architecture after 50 years? Does the Empire State Building now belong to the people of NYC?
Works of Art are property, and should be treated as such.
“These royalties are often their sole pension”
When I retire I wish I’ll get paid for the work I did 50 years before. Don’t these people get the old-age pensions like the rest of us?
Well, I posted this once already, try it again:
All you socialist-democrats vote for Obama and Hillary, this is what we’ll end up with here.
Amazing how all the Rush-haters suddenly understand this idiocy.
“Cause minute by minute by minute by minute
I keep holding on . . .”
NOW it makes sense!
I have just emailed out a bunch of new Invoices to all my customers.
I am now charging 10% per annum royalties on any work I did for them.
If they all pay, I can retire with an income greater than I make now.
I mean they are using the stuff I built/repaired etc. EVERY frickin day!
And I get zero!
So I make something they buy it and then its theirs for ever? Thats not fair.
Well if Johnny No-talent can keep demanding cash for a record that was sold many years ago, why the hell cant I?
Some of these people use my products to entertain a huge party of friends, for example. (I build/fix boats)
I want royalties from all those people as well.
And these talentless greedy jerks are different from the writers how?
“…$3 dollars richer…”
So are we sure that 3 Zunes actually sold? Has this been confirmed?
Thing is; most of these 50 year old songs are in no way the property of the artist. They are owned by the publisher or the corporation that bought out that entity… this is nothing more than protectionist corporate welfare again… keeping the rich wealthy seems to be all governments priority these days.
Amen Jim Tiv, amen. You’ve summed it up quite nicely. I make my living as an artist, and though I’m not on the level of the Doobie Brothers or The Beatles, my work is MY creation. I’m happy to share it, but in ways that I myself choose. I’m pleased that some might consider it ‘part of the culture’, but it wouldn’t be if I hadn’t created it in the first place. Please respect the fact that artists are workers too, and the vast majority of working artists are not riding around in limos. We deserve our livelinhood too. Thank you..
Extended copyrights are generally bad. They damage history, bits of history become cloistered away, because, well, rather than go through the hassle of paying the copyright holder, we’ll just not include that bit. I think loger than 20 years is plenty long enough, 50 is too much, and 95? Are you kidding? That is killing most of the art it aims to protect. Is someone going to go track down John Lee Hooker’s relatives and pay them the $1.75 in royalties owed from last year’s downloads?
In my opinion music is a form of free speech, not an item that should be sold over and over. There comes a time where these non-material things should join the public domain.
Want to know why you can’t go out and purchase a DVD of the 1980 Olympics USA VS USSR? Copyright, thats why. Here’s an example of footage that belongs to every American, yet some copyright owner decides it isn’t worth releasing for free, yet it isn’t worth marketing. So we’ve lost that piece of history, except by accounts.
“I think artists should have longer copyright protections, but levying taxes on blank media is nonsense. Do you ever wonder why there are so many Shakespeare or Jane Austen movies? Right, no copyright protection, so the original author’s family does not get any compensation for their original work.”
My point exactly. The fact that there is no copyright on this ancient material insures its immortality. If Shakespeare’s 9th cousin were entitled to some fat royalty, would the works be preserved as well?
This has nothing to do with supporting the artists. This has everything to do with keeping money in the hands of the recording industry. They are doing whatever they can to keep music out of the public domain because they often “own” at least a portion of the music rights if not the entire copyright. They force artists to sign contracts that only benefit the recording industry because they (used to) control access to the public.
I can’t believe the EU is so daft as to extend copyrights and tax items that “could be” used to make copies of copyrighted music.
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
@ Jim TIV
I can understand granting a lifetime copyright to the creator of a work. They deserve to be compensated.
But his daughter? All she did was win the sperm lottery. Why can’t I have rich parents?
@ @ Jim TIV
If you want to keep your artistic creations, then don’t ever exhibit or share them. Do you really only create art for yourself? macbones has it right — art must be released into the public domain at some point so it can fulfill it’s promise to society.
“ever wonder why there are so many Shakespeare or Jane Austen movies? Right, no copyright protection…”
Maybe the EU should retrospectively change copyright to 1000 years and the descendants of the brothers Grimm, Jane Austen and Hans Christian Andersen could sue Disney and all of Hollywood for royalties and basing stories on their original designs and ‘prior art’. The EU could beat Hollywood at their own game.
Life of artist or 50 years is enough, whichever is max.
Moral: keep producing good, new work that we want to buy. Same for computer OS’s, programs, music, patents.
As for levies on recording media, we paid that for tape and cassettes in the 60s and 70s. It’s not really much, and I can live with it. Who gives a flying crap if a CD blank costs 12 or 12.2 ct?
The extension of copyright protection is far more aggravating. Anything older than twenty-five years is cultural heritage, and it should be freely accessible. So many fine recordings or movies are not available because the heirs of the artists are fighting over the rights. I’d say 25 to life, meaning minimum 25 years, and maximum as long as the original copyright owner or his spouse at the time of content creation lives. No money for gold diggers who entered the picture in the twilight of an artist’s career.
“All she did was win the sperm lottery.”
I thought that was Monica Lewinsky.
Well, I might as well chime in here with my opinion:
For a copyright owned by a natural person (a human being), it should be that person’s lifetime plus 20 years, not renewable or transferable except to a spouse, or 50 years, whichever is more. The 20 years is for spousal benefits, but transfer to a spouse doesn’t extend the copyright lifetime beyond the 20 or 50 years.
For a copyright owned by another entity, the current 50 years, renewable once upon proof of active use in the business of the corporation (e.g., Mickey Mouse). Renewals can be challenged on the basis of the subject matter already having de facto passed into the public domain.
Charlie McCreevy, we’re not cows to be milked
if it’s made in the 50s and 60s, so what… how much more cash do artists want.
Their money should have been in super-annuation fund/ investment rather than spent on white sniffing powder.
“The EU executive also wants to look again at reforming copyright levies charged on blank discs, data storage and music and video players…”
I write and record my own music. I do not accept the concept of paying Elton John or anyone else a royalty for the right to carry my music on my iPod. Microsoft was out of their minds when they agreed to the Zune royalty.
“…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.”
This issue was decided years ago. It’s called ‘time-shifting’. In a misguided attempt to save their extinct business models, record companies are trying to roll back fair use and collect as many repeat purchase / performance royalties as they can get away with. It’s time for artists and listeners to move on and leave those dinosaurs behind. Sky