Today, round two of the music industry’s shameful battle to retain copyright in recordings over 50 years old took effect.
From 1 January next year, Elvis’ earliest recordings come out of copyright in the UK, meaning that others can release them and profit from them with impunity. It sounds bad. But we’re talking about artists who have been profiting for FIFTY YEARS with these tracks. Elvis, like many of the performers who are now coming out of copyright, is dead. And his estate doesn’t need the money.
It’s worth pointing out that the songwriter and composer continues to receive payment.
Now it’s Cliff Richard’s turn to have a moan. He uses the emotive idea that his songs could feature in pornographic films – not something I see happening too quickly. Well Cliff, too bad! You’ve earned cash off your first record for nearly fifty years now. When should it stop? And whilst there might be some performers who don’t have as a healthy a catalogue of hits behind them over the ages, these are the same performers who aren’t earning now.
If you’ve only had one hit record, it doesn’t mean that you deserve to live off it for the rest of your life. Why should it? I really hope that the EU aren’t swayed by the self-interested record companies who are currently occupied in the process of suing some of their biggest customers. The quicker the whole industry dies on its arse the better as far as I’m concerned. If they can’t cope with the competition, when they’ve got the masters (they haven’t lost their precious masters have they?), then they’re even poorer businesses than I thought they were.