Cut ‘use it or lose it’ clause to 35 years, artists say
p2pnet news view P2P | Politics | Music:- Members of Britain’s new Featured Artists Coalition want the European Commission to help them recover their rights to their own music.
As things stand, an EC “use it or lose it” copyright clause means recordings revert to performers if the producer or label no longer wants to market the recording — but only after half a century.
However, FAC members, including Billy Bragg (right), today met with senior civil servants at the Intellectual Property Office in London in a bid to get the cause whittled down to 35 years
“We also discussed how it might be possible to restrict copyright to short term licences rather than assignment for life of copyright,” says Bragg in a comment post on a2f2a.com, the artists-to-fans-to-artists site he co-founded.
During the meeting “A senior civil servant stated that the focus of copyright was moving from permission to remuneration,” he says, going on:
“Talking afterwards we all felt that was very significant, a tacit acceptance of the FAC argument that non-commercial behaviour needs to be lifted out of copyright law.”
Now Bragg is looking for support to break the cycle from file sharers, “particularly in the big fight that we will have next month when the government publish their Digital Britain Bill,” he says.
Copyright is the “stick that they use to beat you and I believe that, as it is being debated at the highest level over the next six months, as governments ask for submissions on the subject, we can work together to disarm the industry to such an extent that they can no longer beat you up over non-commercial use,” he says.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
November, 2009
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.
November 4th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Even 35 years doesn’t sound reasonable, if I understand this correctly (and, I’m not sure I do).
If the idea is, you get the rights back after a certain period of inactivity on your music’s behalf, then I would say that’s far too long.
Most music is more often “consumed” during a certain period of time relating to when it was written. If the label doesn’t see fit to use it somewhere around the time it was submitted, it would be more beneficial to have it handed right back. Holding it in limbo would have to take a helluva lot of value off it.
November 4th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Frankly, 35 years is as bad as 50. But it’s a step forward instead of a step backwards.
Cheers!
November 4th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
A lot of times an artist under contract makes an album and the record company shelves it. How about a law that guarantees an artist the right to buy the rejected work -at cost- from the label if it’s not released within 3 years?
35 years is still a very long time. What’s wrong with 15 years? Even 5 years should be long enough, if something is not released within 5 years, it probably won’t ever be.
November 5th, 2009 at 7:56 am
Bear in mind that the ‘right’ they want back after 35 years is the privilege to prosecute people for playing, sharing, or building upon the covered work.
I appreciate there are some still in that deluded mindset that envisage such a privilege being useful (exploitable) in 35 years’ time, but people are playing, sharing and building upon each other’s music TODAY, and we should be concerned with stopping them from being prosecuted for that – as soon as enough people realise that the corporations are unethically privileged with their liberty.
Until the artists stop thinking this struggle is all about how to get their privileges back (so they can prosecute their fans themselves, or in their dreams, the publishing corporations), and realise it’s about how EVERYONE can live without fear of prosecution for what comes naturally, free of anyone else’s privilege to stop them, we’re not singing from the same song book.
The problem is, most artists have bought the lie that the privilege of stopping others copying their work is their natural right that they should get back. How are we going to enlighten artists that we are all born with the natural right to copy, and that this natural liberty is then suspended by an 18th century privilege intended for the Stationers’ guild (the precursor of modern cartels) that shouldn’t have been granted in the first place?
Natural rights are not transferable, and they don’t last for arbitrary periods. They are inalienable and only limited by lifespan.
So, the artists already have all their natural rights (if they stop to think about it). What they need is to stop publishers (and any other copyright holder) being able to prosecute them for enjoying them.
Abolish copyright.
November 5th, 2009 at 10:17 am
35 YEARS, NO KIDDING!
“in a bid to get the cause whittled down to 35 years”
I agree with Jon that 35 years is too much.
For a singer over 30 years at time of recording, 35 years would mean:
a. No royalty earnings for 35 years.
b. Being able to promote the recording at age 65.
This is the age when most people are retired, the kids graduated from college or are otherwise independent and the mortgage has been paid.
Earnings after this age may actually be useless.
Artists and songwriters should get he rights to their works if after about five year the current right holder is not paying “adequate” royalties, even if the works are being “marketed”.
The establishing of adequate royalty levels would prevent pseudo marketing for the purpose of saying that marketing has not stopped so as not to loose the rights.
BTW, in the USA the vast majority of songs assigned to music publisher never earn any income and are never returned to the songwriters and songwriters feel they cannot get the songs back in court or the legal process is beyond reach as too costly. My gut feeling is that in Europe the situation is similar.