Legal Research

Andy & Charlie show tells music industry what they want to hear

By scott

Andy Burnham seems to have been finally hooked by the Music Industry and now wants to support calls for extending the term of protection for recorded performances from 50 years. At the moment he is still stopping short of the EU’s proposal to extend it to 95 years, instead calling for “An extension to match more closely a performer?s expected lifetime, perhaps something like 70 years, for example, given that most people make their best work in their 20s and 30s”.

The justification for this?

“There is a moral case for performers benefiting from their work throughout their entire lifetime … It?s only right that someone who created or contributed to something of real value gets to benefit for the full course of their life.”

I’m sorry? It’s only right? Why?

I’m really sorry, but if you are going to go down this road then computer programmers, book printers, and house builders, and more should be added into a widened protection. It really does make as much sense to include them if this the rationale behind it. No, silly, it’s all about copyright.

“the legal concept of copyright has underpinned our creative industries for decades, and is essential to rewarding talent and creativity”

Let me say, once again, these rights were granted to act as an incentive to produce new recordings by allowing those producing the sound recordings a reasonable period to recoup their investment. These rights are economic not moral - unlike the case of songwriters/authors who get longer protection (life of the author plus 70 years). The temporary monopoly granted in the form of such a protection to sound recordings is a valid one, but this has to be balanced with benefits to society, which means the right should be limited to allow the producers of the sound recording a reasonable time to recoup the cost of producing the recording. If a record is going to make back its money it will usually do so quite quickly. The protection is not there to compensate producers for records that never recoup the cost of producing them.

Commenting on Andy Burnham?s decision to support the extension of copyright for sound recordings, Liberal Democrat Shadow Culture, Media and Sport Secretary, Don Foster thinks it is Christmas stating that: ?This is a long overdue U-turn. The Government has finally woken up to the financial difficulties many of our musicians are facing.Ministers must now seek to implement the European Commission?s proposals as a matter of urgency.? I’m sure there is an equally pointless response from the tory front bench too.

Burnham was speaking at the UK music Creator’s Conference. Charlie McCreevy - the man behind the EU’s proposals - was also there. And our Charlie had some harsh words for our UK academics (who did things like doing economic analysis of the proposals): “There are a lot of academics here in the UK who engage in general considerations on the length of copyright. But what they seem to be neglecting in their deliberations is that we are talking about real people here, not abstract concepts. It’s pretty straightforward where I am coming from ? and that’s about as far away from an academic ivory tower as you can get. We are talking about livelihoods and payment for work rendered.”

I don’t know about you, but my tear ducts are filling up again.

And he’s right. He said ” We are talking about livelihoods and payment for work rendered.” Can not argue with that, and guess what Charlie, the performers have been paid for the service rendered. If they were a session musician they will have got paid their fee; if they were the performer they would have almost certainly signed over their rights to the record label. In both cases they have still been paid for the work rendered, and if there are any problems it once again comes back to the contracts they signed, nothing else.

I presume Charlie is talking about people such as those at The Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law at Cambridge University that assessed the economic evidence for the case for an extension of the copyright term in sound recordings for the Gower Report on IP and found the case “to be weak.” Also, this bunch of trouble makers that had to twist the arms of some of the fellow ivory tower dwellers across Europe, such as Professor P. Bernt Hugenholtz, of the Institute for Information Law who produced two major studies for the EU on copyright published in 2006 and 2007. ( Some of this work made it into this article that I have linked to before) who also concluded that a copyright term extension would be a bad idea.

Charlie also welcomes the proposed amendment to include film actors into the extension. Can my Mom be added in too?

Some people argue that the idea of the so-called session musician fund in the proposals makes it all worthwhile. Fine, I have no problem with that proposal, and there is absolutely no reason why it cannot be done within the current legal and contractual framework. It wont be, but it could be.

I actually have the solution. Let’s just make copyright (and related rights - as that is what we are actually talking about in this instance) last forever. Problem solved.

Full post as published by Information Overload on December 11, 2008 (boomark / email).