Tuesday, September 13, 2011
No Beatles for you! EU adds 20 years to music copyrights
arstechnica: It took three years of doing, but the music industry has finally won its European battle to lock up in-copyright sound recordings for another 20 years. Looking forward to The Beatles' music entering the public domain as the 50-year copyright terms expires? Not going to happen.
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4 comments:
The battle on copyright is an interesting topic of discussion at this point. the position we are in is a unique place to be , we are reaching a point where even presently popular Works which are still profitable are nearing their time to reach public domain and ofcocarse as deserved and yes to make up for the loss in profits of current artists losing the battle against piracy. it is a two sided coin in many ways however it is sad to see how the direct profitable margin of a work is dependent on it release to the public
I've been rather distraught by this news. I am unconvinced that this does anything to help musicians, and I think it really serves to marginally increase profitability for the labels, but mostly it just means that it will take even longer for music to come into the public domain. The cost to society is large, and the chilling effect on music will be sad. Scholars are unconvinced that this really translates into any more money for the artists, and even if it does, it surely doesn't outweigh the costs.
We had a conversation about this last year in basic PTM and came to the conclusion (not that it's an elusive fact or anything) but copyrights and all of the laws surrounding music really don't benefit the artists as much as people assume. Many artists don't care about music piracy because the free downloads get their name out there and boosts their concert sales. The record company is who really profits from the laws, as they receive a bulk of the money from downloads.
Copyright laws have definitely become a fuzzy issue ever since digital downloading has becoming a prominent method of acquiring music. However, I think they are more talk than an actual help to the artists. Artists who recorded music 50 years ago should already have a trust built up from the music they originally recorded. The money they are making from record sales now is probably not a significant enough amount to be greatly affected by the loss caused by illegal downloading. This affects modern artists more than it does artists who have recorded previously. This news also disheartens me, as it means music of past decades will be more sparsely available. This may affect one's understanding of musical history or may stop someone form listening to a disc they may have listened to otherwise. If music gets to be so heavily protected that there are accessibility problems, then difficult decisions will have to be made concerning the future of buying and downloading songs.
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