Technology Guardian has a front page piece on proposals to extend the lifespan of copyright on music, from 50 years to 95 years. Why 95 years? Well because that’s what it is in America.
Actually, the real rush is because music recorded in the 1950s is now coming out of copyright and in 2012, in time for the Olympics, the first Beatles tracks will be out of copyright. As the article points out, that doesn’t mean that you don’t have to pay anything since publishing royalties are payable to the artist for 70 years beyond the artist’s death. But it does mean that I’d be free to repackage those early Beatles songs and as long as I paid the royalties holder (in this instance Sony after Michael Jackson sold them on – I believe he may have been short of a bob or two), I can release my collections.
I’ve been through this before, and regular readers will know that I’m fundamentally opposed to an extension.
The tenet of the Guardian piece was actually more to do with the various British libraries being unable to legally make copies of pieces of music that are falling to bits before their eyes. While legislation to allow them to make copies as they need to is welcome, extension to 95 years seems to just be for the benefits of record companies who somehow haven’t been able to fully monetise their opportunity over a period of FIFTY YEARS.
There’s also the small matter of all the non famous material that’s locked up in those archives. Whilst anything of any significant commercial interest will either be released by the company itself, or licenced to another label, there is more locked in there. And releasing DRM-locked electronic versions is not a long-term viable answer.
In the meantime, I still don’t own a Beatles album, since they’re possibly the most over-priced classic albums on sale in the UK today and I refuse to be gouged.