As predicted, those who want the copyright terms in sound recordings extended are making a huge amount of noise this week. They’re explicit about their hope - that government will ignore the recommendations of an independent review that has taken nearly a year to complete, and give them what they think they want anyway.
If politicians would like a clear view of how popular an extension of term is going to make them, they need look no further than the bevvy of responses to Mick Hucknall’s incredibly ill-advised piece on Comment is Free last week. Even if you ignore the ad hominem stuff, the reaction’s pretty damning.
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Dec 2nd, 2006 at 12:09 am
Copyright is a tricky thing. You could argue like Travis and Noel Gallagher do that you and your songs are to some extent public property as soon as they leave your lips. But to all practical purposes, I think there should be a sliding scale from fifty years old so that songs gradually become legally public property, while artists receive a slowly decreasing stream of revenue. After, say 70 years, artists no longer receive income but retain all credit.
The music industry is beating out a path for all kinds of digital intellectual rights across media right now. There’s a lot of hurt and misunderstanding.