Some of the best news recently has got to be that the UK is not going to extend the copyright on music beyond the current 50 years to a proposed 95 years. The rather random seeming 95 years is because that’s what it is in America.
As I’ve mentioned before, record companies are seemingly unable to make enough cash from their copyrights over a 50 year period. That’s why the poor businesses neeeded help doubling it.
Well that seems to be have been knocked on the head (although I’ll wait until the official verdict is in). Of course, whilst the first Beatles tracks come out of copyright in the UK in 2013, the songs’ composers (or rights holder – so in this instance, Michael Jackson/Sony) still get paid, and will carry on getting money until they’ve been dead for 70 years (not sure what the means for Lennon/McCartney catalogue when they or their estates don’t own it). So it’s not as though song writers will be destitute.
Mind you, I don’t know how many of his songs, Cliff Richard (one of the campaigners for the increase to 95 years) actually wrote. One way or another, I wouldn’t have thought he was very poor. So quite why he feels that I shouldn’t be able to do some interesting new things with his early songs, I don’t know.