The European Union extends the protection of related rights to music to 70 years
On September 7, 2011, the EU Key Committee voted to extend the protection of related rights for performers of music to 70 years 1 . This was the last stage that needs to be passed before the final approval of this decision by the EU Council of Ministers, which will most likely take place in the near future, reports the BBC .
Previous attempts to extend the validity of related rights from the current 50 years have been made in 2006 and 2008, but only now they have reached their logical conclusion. It must be said, this was done very timely, because in 2012 it will be 50 years since the release of the first single The Beatles (Love Me Do), after which the owners of the songs of great musicians would lose their rights to one song after another every month. Now they are guaranteed to receive royalties up to 2032.
When it comes to once again extending the time limits for the protection of related rights in the United States and the European Union, experts with a grin notice that the songs of The Beatles and Mickey Mouse will never go into the public domain. However, Mickey Mouse is registered by Disney as a trademark in the United States, so the corporation will always have the rights to it forever, that is, how much it wants.
The decision on a period of 70 years is a compromise, because the musicians themselves insisted on extending the period of payment of royalties to 95 years.
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According to critics of this decision, it does not make any sense, because it contradicts the spirit of copyright law, which should stimulate creativity and innovation. Extending the deadlines, are the authorities trying to stimulate innovation and creativity in retrospect, that is, for musicians 50 years ago?
From another point of view , intellectual property is the cornerstone of a post-industrial economy. In the future, when all or almost all physical work in the world will be performed by robots, the most valuable goods in the world economy will be exactly digital goods protected by copyright, that is, music, movies, games, software, etc. People will be engaged in the production of only such intangible goods, so that copyright is the basis of the foundations for human civilization in the future.
Although it is unlikely that current politicians look so far into the future. Most likely, their decisions are based on some other argument: they simply want to equalize the rights of music performers with other authors, including composers and owners of rights to movies, in order to make the copyright protection system more fair. Otherwise it turned out that now the music performers had the smallest term of protection of their copyright and related rights.
1 We are talking about copyright for the performance of a musical work , whereas for composers the copyright has long been in effect for 70 years, and this period begins to be calculated after the death of the author.
Previous attempts to extend the validity of related rights from the current 50 years have been made in 2006 and 2008, but only now they have reached their logical conclusion. It must be said, this was done very timely, because in 2012 it will be 50 years since the release of the first single The Beatles (Love Me Do), after which the owners of the songs of great musicians would lose their rights to one song after another every month. Now they are guaranteed to receive royalties up to 2032.
When it comes to once again extending the time limits for the protection of related rights in the United States and the European Union, experts with a grin notice that the songs of The Beatles and Mickey Mouse will never go into the public domain. However, Mickey Mouse is registered by Disney as a trademark in the United States, so the corporation will always have the rights to it forever, that is, how much it wants.
The decision on a period of 70 years is a compromise, because the musicians themselves insisted on extending the period of payment of royalties to 95 years.
')
According to critics of this decision, it does not make any sense, because it contradicts the spirit of copyright law, which should stimulate creativity and innovation. Extending the deadlines, are the authorities trying to stimulate innovation and creativity in retrospect, that is, for musicians 50 years ago?
From another point of view , intellectual property is the cornerstone of a post-industrial economy. In the future, when all or almost all physical work in the world will be performed by robots, the most valuable goods in the world economy will be exactly digital goods protected by copyright, that is, music, movies, games, software, etc. People will be engaged in the production of only such intangible goods, so that copyright is the basis of the foundations for human civilization in the future.
Although it is unlikely that current politicians look so far into the future. Most likely, their decisions are based on some other argument: they simply want to equalize the rights of music performers with other authors, including composers and owners of rights to movies, in order to make the copyright protection system more fair. Otherwise it turned out that now the music performers had the smallest term of protection of their copyright and related rights.
1 We are talking about copyright for the performance of a musical work , whereas for composers the copyright has long been in effect for 70 years, and this period begins to be calculated after the death of the author.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/128092/
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