[Dixielandjazz] European Copyright Law Change

[Stephen G Barbone]

Here is an explanation, and some muso views of the European copyright  
change that Kash wrote about earlier. As an aside, we used to have  
performer royalties here in the USA. Our bassist, Ace Tesone, received  
performer checks for Chubby Checker's Twist recordings for many years.  
He was in that back-up band.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/baarbonestreetjazzband

Europe Extends Copyright on Music

By Larry Rohter - NY Times - Sep 12, 2011.

In a victory for the financially troubled recording industry, the  
European Union on Monday extended the term of copyright on sound  
recordings to 70 years from 50, while declining to include provisions  
that would allow artists in Britain and elsewhere in Europe to recoup  
ownership of their music easily. Had the Council of the European Union  
not acted, many of the most famous and popular recordings of the  
British Invasion of the 1960s, including albums by the Beatles, the  
Rolling Stones, the Who and the Yardbirds, would have fallen into the  
public domain in the coming years. For example, the Beatles’ first hit  
record, “Love Me Do,” which was released in 1962, could have been  
treated next year in much the same way as works by classical composers  
whose exclusive ownership of their music has expired. With multiple  
versions available at cheaper prices, the four major record labels  
would be deprived of one of their biggest sources of income.

“This important decision comes not a moment too soon,” said Geoff  
Taylor, chief executive of the British Phonographic Industry, a trade  
group that represents the major labels. “An exceptional period of  
British musical genius was about to lose its protection. As a matter  
of principle, it is right that our musicians should benefit from their  
creativity during their lifetimes, and that they should not be  
disadvantaged compared to musicians in other countries.”



Musicians, however, were not as enthusiastic. “This is extremely good  
news for record companies and collection agencies, but bad news for  
artists,” said the singer Sandie Shaw, who along with Nick Mason of  
Pink Floyd and Ed O’Brien of Radiohead is one of the leaders of the  
Featured Artists Coalition, a British group that advocates for  
musicians’ rights. “It means they have 20 more years in servitude to  
contracts that are no longer appropriate to a digital age.”



For the record labels, whose sales have dropped by more than half over  
the last decade, the decision is a marked contrast to coming copyright  
challenges in the United States. The copyright law approved by  
Congress in 1976 includes a provision, known as “termination rights,”  
that allows recording artists and songwriters to reclaim ownership of  
their work after 35 years.



Many American musicians who made recordings in the 1970s, including  
Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Loretta Lynn, are now filing such claims. The  
four major labels — Sony, Universal, EMI and Warner — are strenuously  
resisting, arguing that the performers were employees doing “work for  
hire,” and thus not entitled to claim copyright.



The Council of the European Union said in a statement issued after the  
vote — which was 17 to 8, with two abstentions — that the main reason  
for approving the copyright extension was to benefit performers and  
songwriters. The existing system “often does not protect their  
performances for their entire lifetime,” and “therefore some  
performers face an income gap at the end of their lifetimes,” the  
statement said. But in many cases the artists who made the original  
recordings back in the 1960s are not the actual owners. In recent  
years there has been an outpouring of biographies of, and  
autobiographies by, musicians from that era, including members of the  
Beatles and the Rolling Stones, in which the artists say that they  
were duped as youngsters into signing contracts with low royalty rates  
and relinquishing ownership of their own music to record or management  
companies.



As a result, 72 percent of the financial benefits from the new  
directive will accrue to record labels, according to calculations done  
by the Center for Intellectual Property Policy and Management at  
Bournemouth University in England. Of the 28 percent that will go to  
artists, the calculations say, most of the money will go to superstar  
acts, with only 4 percent benefiting musicians like those mentioned in  
the European Union statement.



“A term extension is not an appropriate measure to improve the  
situation of the performing artists,” Belgium argued in its written  
dissent to the action. “It seems that the measure will mainly benefit  
record producers and not performing artists, will only have a very  
limited effect for most of the performing artists” and “will have a  
negative impact on the accessibility of cultural material” for  
consumers.



In contrast to copyright law in the United States, copyright law in  
Europe does not include a “termination rights” clause, nor was one  
inserted into the new regulations approved on Monday. Instead, the new  
directive, which the 27 member states are obliged to put into effect  
within two years, contains a vague assurance that “foresees measures”  
to guarantee that musicians “actually benefit from the term extension  
and may recuperate their rights subject to certain conditions.”



The directive does include a “use it or lose it” clause that allows  
artists to reclaim ownership rights to recordings, but only after 50  
years and only if a recording is no longer available commercially. It  
also sets up a new fund for payments to session musicians and a “clean  
slate” provision that is supposed to wipe out musicians’ debts to  
their labels. But Ms. Shaw said the artists’ group wanted “the 35-year  
thing, because record company ownership in perpetuity is immoral.”



The recording industry lobbied heavily for the new copyright  
directive, which had been blocked in the past by a coalition of  
smaller European countries that see the extension as harmful to  
innovation. Under Prime Minister Tony Blair, the British government  
commissioned a study that also recommended against the extension, but  
Prime Minister David Cameron came out in favor of the measure, one of  
whose chief beneficiaries will be the beleaguered British label EMI,  
whose assets include records by the Beatles and Pink Floyd.



“This is a dreadful day” for musicians and consumers, said Martin  
Kretschmer, director of the Bournemouth University institute. “Over  
all, policymakers are schizophrenic, speaking a language of change and  
innovation, but then respond to lobbying by extending the right, which  
gave rise to the problem in the first place. This only entrenches a  
cynical attitude toward copyright law and brings it into further  
disrepute.”