The European Commission has long lobbied for copyright term
extension from 50 years to 95 years. A report by Irish MEP Brian
Crowley has suggested an extension to 70 years of protection.
That report was adopted at first reading by MEPs, who voted by
377 votes to 178 to back the proposal. It must now be approved by
the Council of Ministers, but some countries are known to be
hostile to any extension.
Crowley said that the reduced term extension contained in his
proposed legislation was a recognition of the fact that some of the
27 EU member states did not approve of extension.
The legislation proposes that performers retain the right to be
paid for 70 years after the release of a recording. Some of that
money will go to the producers of recordings, since session players
sign over their rights in exchange for a one-off playing fee.
Producers will have to set aside 20% of the income generated by
the extra 20-year period of protection. This will be placed in a
fund for session musicians which will be administered by music
collecting societies.
The new law also includes a 'use it or lose it' clause by which
players can regain control of recordings if they are not released
to the public by producers. Once the initial 50 year term has
expired, if producers are not still releasing work to the public
the performers can complain.
If producers have not released it within a year of that
complaint then they will lose their right to earn royalties from
performances on the material.
The proposed changes relate to performances on recordings and
not to the writing of the material. Writing royalties last for 70
years after the author or composer's death.
The Commission's 95 year proposal was a response to lobbying
from the music industry and from artists led by Cliff Richard who
argued that musicians should have the right to earn from old
recordings until they die. The ending of the 50-year term on early
rock and roll recordings brought the problem into focus.
The Commission's actions were sharply criticised, though, by an
academic who had been commissioned by the body to investigate the
effects of term extension. Director of the University of
Amsterdam's Institute for Information Law (IViR) Professor Bernt
Hugenholtz said that two studies the IViR carried out for the
Commission were ignored.
Hugenholtz wrote an open letter to the Commission accusing it of
"wilfully ignoring scientific analysis and evidence" in its policy
making.
Hugenholtz said that industry-produced evidence and studies by
interested parties were referenced by the Commission in its
explanation of its policy decisions, but that its independent work
was ignored.
"The Commission's obscuration of the IViR studies and its
failure to confront the critical arguments made therein seem to
reveal an intention to mislead the Council and the Parliament, as
well as the citizens of the European Union," he said in the
letter.
The Gowers Review of Intellectual Property, carried out at the
Government's request in 2006, recommended that the term of
copyright protection for sound recordings remain unchanged at 50
years.
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